


Heartbeat

by JaysNarnia, Lissamel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Death, Demons, Killing, Multi, Silly shenanigans, Vampires, Werewolves, Where Dave falls for John of course, Witches, Zombies, monster au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaysNarnia/pseuds/JaysNarnia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissamel/pseuds/Lissamel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dumb AU where John's the world's worst and most awkward zombie. And Dave is an angst ridden demon who steals hearts for their souls. Shenanigans ensue, what could happen to them?? We just don't know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a collaboration with myself (JaysNarnia) and my best friend Lissamel. This is our first fanfiction so please comment and review! We can't wait to continue this fun story!

**Chapter 1**

****

Your name is John Egbert, and it’s dark.

Really, really dark. Pitch black. The phrase ‘darker than a cow’s stomach’ comes to mind, but you’re not sure where you heard this, or if you literally just made it up. Besides, compared to other stomachs, how dark can a cow’s really be?

You attempt to sit up. You find you are almost unable to bend, much less sit up. Suddenly this is beginning to feel all claustrophobic. You roll your shoulders back and nudge your feet around, and come to the conclusion you are in a wooden box.

Now this feels really claustrophobic.

You shift slightly, trying to make sense of it all. You have deduced you are in a small, dark, wooden box, which means...

A fear in the back of your head suddenly triggers. You’ve presume you’ve been buried alive.

You begin breathing hard, though you realize quickly this is a stupid thing to do because you’ll run out of oxygen. You stop and begin holding your breath. That’s better. You feel like you read something online about what to do when you’re buried alive, though hell if you can remember it now. You begin kicking the wooden top of the coffin. That was probably something it advised you to do. Angry, you kick it harder and harder, the air you were holding slowly escaping through your nose. You don’t even know if this kicking is doing any good, given how goddamn dark it is. You’d kill for a flashlight right about now.

Suddenly there’s a cracking noise. That’s probably a good sign. Obviously this wasn’t all that good of wood--Or maybe it was real dry. Doesn’t dry wood crack easy? You don’t know, and don’t particularly care at this moment. Following this crack, you kick harder and harder, even beginning to pound on it with your fists. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this!

The wood splits. Dirt pours onto your knees and upper legs, not compressing you down much, leading you to believe it’s dry, too. Great, you were probably buried in Arizona. It’s hot there, the dirt and wood could be really dry. It does make you wonder why your murderer went through all the trouble of stuffing you in an airplane to take you to Arizona just for the sake of killing you, but maybe he just likes that place. Nice cacti. Dry heat. Probably some idiosyncrasy with him makes him adore killing people by burying them alive in Arizona.

You have officially turned a life-or-death situation into an episode of Criminal Minds. Somehow you feel achieved.

Working your way around the dirt, you pound on the split with your hands. The wood appears to like working with you and the split increases, going up to your chest. More dirt piles on top of you and you start wondering if, at this point, you’re just speeding up your imminent death. Closing your eyes and getting one last gulp of air to hold, you awkwardly twist your torso and manage to get your head into a world of dirt.

Fumbling with your hands, you push dirt around and awkwardly try to stand up in the dirt. This is really hard, you find out quickly. It’s a little like swimming, actually, just drier and in dirt, not in water. So it isn’t like swimming at all, but you’re going to keep the analogy, since it just seems right. Batting all the dirt around, you attempt to sort of swim-climb up, which gets harder the higher you go, since it appears the top of the soil is more wet then the bottom. You claw your way and you think you’re making progress but you just aren’t sure and oh god you really screwed up; you’re going to die like the fucking idiot you are for thinking this would really work.

Your hand makes it to the surface.

If you could smile, you would have; the biggest, dorkiest smile you could muster that would make even your dad chuckle a little. But smiling under a case of dirt seems like a really stupid idea, so you don’t. Using that hand to pull you up slightly, you thrust your other hand up and that breaks the surface. Now with two hands to hoist you up, this seems really easy. Your upper arm strength was never the best, but it’s enough to get you higher and higher, kicking your legs to keep you moving up. You can feel your arms getting higher up in the surface, and giving it all you’ve got, you make a desperate jump up.

The top of your head makes it up. This is all you need to remind yourself that this isn’t a futile gesture. You work slower now as your head fully breaks the surface, your shoulders following. But you can’t stop now. In a last burst of energy you pull the rest of your body up to land and fall onto your stomach, coughing and sputtering.

You’re alive. It took a lot of effort, but you’re alive.

Take that, UNSUB! Or whatever they called the killers on Criminal Minds.

Groggy, your eyes slowly open. It’s now you realize your glasses are crooked beyond all belief, and probably broken as well, if the split on the left lens is anything to go by. You’ll need to get a new pair. Frowning, you push yourself up and blink a lot, trying to get your eyes to work as well as they can with your broken glasses.

Now is a good time to get a grasp of where in Arizona you are. It’s dark out, but not as dark as before, with the moon to help light the area. It’s a waxing (waning? You weren’t really paying attention when you learned this stuff) not-quite-crescent, which doesn’t provide much light but it’s enough. There’s lots of grass below you--How much grass is in Arizona anyway? Whatever, maybe you’re still in Washington. Or somewhere. You just don’t know.

You look over your shoulder. There’s a tombstone right behind you, along with a cake and a note. Who on earth puts a cake at the end of your fake tombstone? This killer was really rather strange. There’s more tombstones around you, now that you think about it, which means either this killer has been doing this for a while or you’re just in a graveyard. Okay, maybe the latter makes more sense. Now curious, you scoot yourself closer to the tombstone so you can read it.

HERE LIES JOHN EGBERT

“When somebody asks you if you’re a god, you say ‘yes’!”

You don’t bother to read more. Your tombstone has a Ghostbusters quote, which only makes it the best tombstone ever, second to none. You wish there could have been more quotes on it, making it like a movie collection on a slab of rock, that would be--

Wait a second here! Ignore the quote for a second. That’s your tombstone. As in, the one marking where you were buried. As in, the most important slab of rock you’ll ever see.

You look down. There’s that cake. In neat piping there’s the little slime symbol that’s on your shirt. Right under it, there’s the letters ‘R.I.P.’

It may be smudged by that dirt you kicked up, but you’d know that cake anywhere. It’s the exact same kind of cake...

The exact same kind of cake your dad was so fond of making.

You now know exactly what’s going on here.

Your name is John Egbert, and you’re dead.

...Well, not really, obviously, or you wouldn’t be here, sitting on your legs, looking from the cake to the tombstone and back again. You’re undead. A zombie, you guess. In theory, this is really cool, because you’re a zombie and zombies are cool. But you’re still dead, which isn’t cool at all.

Slowly, you stand up. Your legs are still a bit shaky from your previous adventure in the dirt, but they succeed in holding your weight. Just to be nice, you gently kick the dirt back into the hole you made, patting it down with your feet. You can’t have the gravekeeper knowing that you just rose from the dead. That would not go over well. Afterwards you begin walking, checking yourself out to see how battered you are. Of course, your skin is pale, a blueish-green tint to it, which is just the standard zombie skin tone. There’s a few gashes on your skin here and there, and with some careful prodding you notice that you have a large, squishy, gaping hole in your chest. Well, that gives you a good idea on how you died: you were attacked by a wild animal, or possibly a cannibal who liked hearts and only hearts. Neither of these options seemed particularly good, and honestly thinking about it makes you a little uneasy. Even when you’re a member of the walking dead, you shouldn’t be thinking of how you died.

In the distance there’s a crummy shack. Probably where the gravekeeper keeps his supplies. You awkwardly stumble your way there, figuring you have nowhere better to go. You mean, you couldn’t walk back to your house. Your dad is still under the impression that you’re dead. A zombie appearing on someone’s doorstep, looking for a nap and some new glasses and maybe brains or something? Yeah, like that would go over well.

Once you make it over, you stare at the door. It has a lock on it, as you’d expect, since there’s probably some important shovels in there. However, by nudging the door frame with your hand, you find that it opens--Meaning it was locked quite improperly. You smile an awkward half-smirk and walk in, the door creaking loudly as you open it wider and then close it.

Inside, it’s dark, slightly damp, and cobwebby. There’s some shovels, a thick coat for when you want to do some incredibly suspicious grave digging, and probably some other shit you don’t care about now. You grab the coat off the hook, find an empty corner, and curl up and fall asleep.

Well, as asleep as you can get, being dead and all.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where John kills a man and meets Dave (Who's also killing a man).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow lookee here chapter 2! Please comment and review!

**Chapter 2**

 

****

Kreeeeeeeeeeeee.

Your eyes bolt open to the shack’s door creaking open. Oh shit it’s probably the gravekeeper! Looking around in a panic, you find absolutely no good hiding places for a full body except...

You curl into a ball and keep yourself covered with the bulky coat you used as a blanket.

Suddenly, footsteps. There’s grumbles, something about how they shouldn’t have to work on Sundays, that this was stupid and yadda yadda who cares. It sounds feminine--Wait, the gravekeeper is a girl? Plot twist of the year! Never would have seen this coming. You muse over the gravekeeper’s gender as the footsteps pause and there’s a scratching sound of metal on wood. Must be getting a shovel then. And then...

“Now, how did this get knocked over?” She says, the footsteps restarting as they trot over nearer and nearer to you. Oh shit maybe this wasn’t a very good hiding place after all. You try not to make a sound as the gravekeeper gets closer and closer until she finally lifts up the coat.

An inhuman noise comes from the back of her throat.

What did zombies do in these situations!? You’ve watched enough of these movies, you should know! Awkwardly, you growl at her, trying to scare her into submission. She apparently is not good with this whole ‘submit’ thing and hits you across the cheek with that shovel. The force knocks your glasses off and they fall to the floor.

You really should have thought this through better.

What else did zombies do? You try and tackle her, wrestling her to the ground. She’s pretty relentless with that shovel though, and is clearly attempting to beat your brains in. Wait--Brains! That was it! Closing your eyes because this is going to be gross, you snap forward and sink your teeth into her scalp.

More screaming. Screaming and shovels, that’s all there is to this girl.

It turns out teeth don’t break through skulls all that easy, so you chew on the spot you made your first bite. She’s trying to get you off, trying to kill you before you kill her. You’re not going to have any of that! You free up a hand to fumble around for something, and soon, you do come up with a suitable weapon--A stone chisel. Wait, did she hand-chisel the words into the tombstones out there? Or did she just keep it there for, like, sentimental value? If she actually hand-chiseled all this, you’re going to feel bad about killing her. All this work for nothing. You position the hand holding the chisel over her throat and slam down on the top of it with your other fist. It pierces. She won’t have long to live now! You feel triumphant all of a sudden. As a last attempt to get the better of you, she slams the shovel one last time into your shoulder before coughing, sputtering, and eventually dying.

You allow your eyes to open now as you dislodge your teeth from her skull. Now that you can see her up close, you feel even worse for killing her. She has nice, thick, dark, wavy hair. She has a cute little outfit in grey, black and white; perfectly professional. Totally the kind of person who would hand-carve all the words in every tombstone. All her blood is on the floor, making it quite a sight indeed. But, for your first time killing someone, it was a pretty good time.

...So are you supposed to eat the body now? You did just sink your teeth into her skull, but you’re not sure you’re comfortable with cannibalism. Deciding against it, you pick her up, the shovel clanking to the ground. You walk over to the corner of the shack, nudge the coat away with your foot, and then set her down on the ground. Just to look non-suspicious, you prop her until she’s sitting and place the shovel in her lap. Perfect! Nobody will suspect a thing.

Well, if they don’t notice all that blood on the floor, anyway.

Wow, that’s a lot of blood.

With the gravekeeper dead, what do you do now? It must be morning since the gravekeeper showed up. Maybe you can go exploring! That would be fun. You go back and put on your broken glasses, then pick up the coat and put it on, trying to disguise your rotting flesh as best as you can. It seems to work well enough, even if you can still pretty well see the skin on your face and hands. Oh well, it’s not like people will actually look, right?

Deciding not to personally see how well it would go over, you nervously and quickly abscond the fuck out of there. People would be looking for her soon, and hell if you were going to get caught.

There’s a road not that far from where you’re standing. A good place to begin. You walk over to the sidewalk, looking at all the graves you pass. None of them, of course, are as cool as yours. It has a Ghostbusters quote on it. Nothing can top that!

It doesn’t take too long to make it to the sidewalk, and leaving the graveyard behind you walk along the road. You stuff your hands into your pockets and hold your head slightly down, trying to make yourself look normal as you approach a small suburb. It’s a dinky little street, very much deserted by the look of things, home to a few houses that all look the same except for a few color differences. At the end of the street you see a little area containing some stores. A candy shop, a bridal gown store, and a comic shop. None of these things, considering the ghost-town-esque state of the suburb, seem like popular things to buy around here. How they’re still up-and-running is a mystery to you. Just past these stores, there’s what appears to be an alleyway. If you squint, you can see two people there. Crossing the street (and almost getting hit by a purple punchbuggy in the process), you make your way over to this alley, wondering who these people could be. Maybe they were lovers or something, that could be cute. It’d help get his mind off of killing that girl.

When you get there and can see them well enough; the guy sticks his hand into her chest quite forcefully.

What the holy fucking shit.

In one fluid motion, the guy rips out her whole fucking heart. It beats once or twice in his hand as she stares in pain and shock, and she falls over dead. He stuffs the vital organ into a pocket of his coat and begins to nonchalantly walk away.

What the fucking hell just took place here?

The events replay in your head a few times as you stand there, staring. The guy’s head turns as he looks over his shoulder, seeing you standing there like a dope. He turns on his heel and walks over to you.

Oh fucking god he’s going to kill you too fuck shit...fuck!

Wait, you’re a zombie, remember!? Get a hold of yourself! You mentally scold yourself for how stupid you are for even thinking he could kill you again. As you do this, he keeps walking closer, and soon stops right in front of you. He’s looking you up and down. “What are you doing here?” He asks.

“Oh, um, I-I was just...Going to meet a friend.” You reply, trying to smile as coolly as you can manage. He’s starting to creep you out, but maybe that’s just because you recently saw him tear out a girl’s heart. “And, um, this is a shortcut. Yeah.”

He tilts his head slightly, trying to get a better look at your face. You tilt your face down, trying to make sure he doesn’t realize you’re dead. Thank God no blood got onto that coat (which really is a miracle, given how much there was on the floor).

The guy frowns, crosses his arms, and shifts back a little. “You’re not supposed to be here.” His sunglasses completely block your view of his eyes, but you can imagine him looking at you in very stern disapproval.

“I--I see that.” You nod, attempting to sidestep him briskly. “I-I’ll just be going, then. Goodbye!”

He puts a hand on your shoulder. “I mean, you’re not supposed to be here.” He emphasizes every word in a very acid-tipped fashion, as though you’re too stupid and thick to get his drift. Which you might be. When you don’t reply for a while, he lets out an exasperated sigh and clarifies, “I mean, here. On this plane of existence.”

“Well, I’m not seeing any bright light, so...” You attempt to shrug, smiling a corny smile. He isn’t amused. “What, you mean I should be on a different--”

“Dead! Son of a fuck, you’re supposed to be dead!” He snaps at you, spinning you around and grabbing your other shoulder and then shaking you a bit, for emphasis. “I ripped your heart out! It’s on a shelf with all the other ones! Second to the left, I remember!”

If he weren’t a heart-ripping madman, you just might have laughed and called him crazy. But he is a heart-ripping madman. You look down at him, blinking slowly. “...You did? Really?”

“No, you were killed by Mola Ram, the dude who ripped out that guy’s heart in the Indiana Jones movie.” He replies dryly, tilting down his shades just so you can see him roll his eyes. Which happen to be bright red. Wow. “Yes, really! So...”

“...John. John Egbert” You fill in, assuming that’s what he wants.

“So, John, explain to me why the fuck you’re still living.”

Yes, as though you just happen to know that. That’s just something every zombie knows right off the top of their head. Hey, Bill, how didja die? Oh, you know, electric chair. You?  “I--I don’t know!” You admit, a little embarrassed. It’s not like you could remember, you didn’t remember much of anything; only that your name was John Egbert and that you had a dad who was crazy for baking cakes.

He frowns, retracting his hands. “Oh, well then...” He looks kind of awkward, probably since he admitted that he killed you. Most people would be awkward about that too. And you shouldn’t be talking since, hey, you killed someone today too. Maybe it was like a party of killers! That would make an interesting reality show, you think.

He snaps his fingers in front of your eyes rudely. “Hey, Zombert, you fucking zoned out on me there. Though thinking about it, you probably don’t have much going on in that pretty little head of yours.” He said with an eyebrow quirked up.

You look at him blankly for a bit then shake your head. “So uh...Temple of Doom dude, why the fuck are you ripping out hearts?”

He rubs the back of his neck, his casual demeanor suddenly melting away and turning into one of slight awkwardness. Apparently this isn’t something he’s asked a whole lot. “Well, if I get ‘nuff of them, I might turn human again.”

Oh, so he isn’t human? Would have you fooled. Though then again you really should have concluded this after the whole plunge-your-hand-into-a-girl’s-chest thing he did back there. Funny enough, when phrased that way, it sounds dirtier than it really was. “...So what are you now, then?”

“Demon.” He’s suddenly casual again. Because casually mentioning you’re a demon is something common to him, apparently. “All the Striders are. Lalondes, though, that’s another story entire--” He stops, smacking his forehead. “Man! Ugh, I told Rose I’d be back after I got that chick’s heart, she’s going to fucking kill me...” Pause. He looks back to you and smirks. “Since I just met you and almost told you my whole life story, wanna’ go meet the family or some shit?”

You fumble for words. Demon? A whole flock of them? And then some other family called Lalondes...This day officially got really weird really fast. “Sure!” You finally say, figuring you have nothing better to do.

He grabs you by the hand and drags you away down the alley.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where John is dragged to the lovely home of many monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is all done! And we're working on chapter 4! Don't forget to comment and review!

 

**Chapter Three**

****

He only stops dragging you when you reach an old-timey Victorian home. It’s black and deep purple, with some steps leading up to a circular archway that separates the outside world from the porch. Gold accents are placed to add effect, lots of windows adorning the walls, and--Is that a spire? No Victorian house is complete without a spire, you suppose, but still it’s a bit surprising. Him and you walk up to a huge cast iron gate, dark and intimidating. He presses an intercom button and the thing makes a loud static-y noise before a very annoyed feminine “Hello?” answers.

The demon dude snorts and drawls out a quick “Yo, dear sibling of mine, you sound ever so pleasant today. Can you let me and my new bait in? It’s fucking cold and I got a heart in my pocket.”

The intercom is silent for a minute before the annoyed voice is back. “You did what David? Bait? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Aww Rose, calm down, he’s a fucking zombie, ain’t no boy toy or some shit. Calm your undead tits for a second here.”

Rose lets out a sarcastic “Hah hah, very funny Dave.” before sighing and opening the huge gate. Dave (apparently-though he looks like a Zack, or maybe not) turns to you and lets out a grin before tugging you along. He leads you up a winding cobblestone path before coming in front of the towering Victorian mansion.

“Now before I let you in, I gotta tell you about the family first.”

You nod your head nervously, hoping they’d like you at least.

“So my sister Rose, she’s a 150 year old vampire who’s frozen as a 20 year old woman. Snarky and enjoys wizard porn. Analyzes the shit out of people. Her girlfriend Kanaya is also a vampire and is into fashion.” He looks you over again before adding. “She’ll have a field day with you.”

Glaring at him, he continues. “I’m a heart stealing son of satan, along with my older brother Dirk who’s an incubus.” You widen your eyes before he laughs at you. “He won’t touch you I promise, he’s got his hands full with the leader of the Seattle werewolf pack. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you we live with a two werewolves. Jade and Jake. They’re both peppy and annoyingly never tired at all. It’s like they have fucking coffee in their system, which is ironic ‘cause Jade’s narcoleptic. But hey, irony is fucking cool man.” He smirks at you while you try to process what he just said.

“And the last three members are my even older brother Bro who’s an Alp or some shit. Demon of nightmares? I don’t know, it’s German and who cares about Germany anyway. Then there’s Mom and Roxy, both are drunken witches who always mess around with everyone. They’re great at parties though and tell the best gossip. Always try to bum off one of their martinis, they’re amazing at making them.” He’s now fishing out his keys from another pocket of his large coat. And you are still standing there, processing the whole family of...monster people. What the hell did you get yourself into?

“...Can I even drink martinis?”

“On second thought, yeah, don’t bother with that.” He comes up with a dark black skeleton key. You two trot up the stairs and to the door, and Dave shoves the key into the door’s lock and it opens. “Welcome inside, make yourself at home.”

You enter, taking off your jacket. The parlor is dimly lit, as any good Gothic parlor should be, adorned with dusty red velvet sofas and little end tables that look like gargoyles holding glass disks. Pictures are on the walls, of people who may be related to the people Dave mentioned and may not be, you really couldn’t tell. There’s a fireplace, and it’s lit, making the room nice and toasty. The floors have one or two dark rugs on them, though the rest is dark wood in a reddish hue. In all, it looks nice enough, you figure, but Dave doesn’t seem too pleased with it.

“Yeah, this was all Rose’s bright idea.” He proceeds to do a poor imitation of a female voice. “‘Oh, I’m Rose and I’m all troubled and shit! Let’s decorate half the fucking house to look like a fucking emo thespian! Genius!’”

“David, your impression of me was impeccable, I must say.” An amused snarky voice sounds behind the both of you. Turning around you see a pale blonde woman walking down the huge winding staircase on the far left of the room. She looks just like Dave, but female and a little shorter. A bemused look is on her face, and Dave looks sort of uncomfortable.

“Rose, your presence is so charming to have around.” He says with a tight voice. She chuckles at him and walks up to you. Compared to yourself, she’s about chest level with you. Dark makeup adorns her face, which makes her look even paler. She smiles and you can see those very long sharp canines that make you shiver a bit.

“So, who are you? It seems as if my brother has taken a fancy to you, because it’s not like him to bring home his victims, even if they walk out of the earth.” Dave reddens beside you, the cool-kid demeanor he had about him (probably deriving from the 80’s style shades and slicked back blonde hair, you presume) lessening. Rose knowingly smiles at him and you stand there looking confused.

“My name’s...uh...John Egbert, and apparently I’m a zombie now. I got my heart ripped out by Mr. McCool over there and now I’m alive again.” Rose laughs lightly at your statement while Dave just looks mortified.

“Yes, my brother rips out the hearts of his victims, such a gross display.” She says in a snarky manner. Dave growls under his breath and replies shortly “Yeah, well, drinking blood ain’t so nice either, Lalonde.”

“Isn’t.” She corrects him. He shoots what appears to be a glare, but you can’t really tell because of his aviators.

“So, uh...” You try to break the sibling tension with a new topic, but nothing comes to mind and you end up looking more clueless than ever.

Rose saves your ass with the questions of “How long have you been living again?” and “Do you have anywhere to stay?”

You reply with a “Um, about a few hours.” and “No, I don’t. I accidently killed the gravekeeper because she found me out in the graveyard’s shed.” They look at you for a while without saying anything, and you shrink back a little. “Well it’s not as if you both are any better!” You protest. “I just saw Dave rip out a chick’s heart!”

They both burst out laughing and you feel as confused as you were when you woke up inside the coffin. “...Um...What did I say?”

“It’s more of a ‘funny-since-it’s-true’ kind of thing.” Dave clarifies. He pulls the heart out of his pocket and begins tossing the organ between his hands. “So, Rose, how’s your day been? Bein’ all dark in here and shit. Would you really burn in the sun or...?” Stopping his heart-juggling, he pauses to bite into it and chew it’s gooey flesh.

You wince.

“I’m not going to take any chances.” She remarks, though upon seeing your reaction smirks a little. “Trust me, you’ll get used to that in time. Though it is rather rude to be eating in front of guests.”

He swallows, smirking back. “Come on, he saw me kill a girl, I thought he wouldn’t be so goddamn squeamish.” He playfully punches you in the shoulder. “Some zombie you are.”

Where he punched you leaves a slight dent, given your overly squishy dead skin. You frown, trying to poke it back into position. “Come on, I’m new to this! Give the newbie a break!”

“Fucking noob.” Dave mutters.

“...So, you’re a demon who eats hearts then?” You ask. Rose has gone to sit down and read. Apparently she had lost interest in the both of you. Which was fine, she sort of unnerved you, though you weren’t quite sure why the fucking heart eating demon named Dave didn’t scare you. Maybe it was the shades...they looked like the ones Ben Stiller wore from that dumb movie. Hell if you can remember which one though. Maybe all of them. Ben Stiller loves dumb shades.

“Yeah, well, I eat them because the heart contains the soul, the essence of a human being. The stuff that fills me up because I don’t have my own.” He says bluntly. “Like an incubus feeding off the energy humans give off during sex, I get mine from the human soul. Which means I have to go ripping out people’s hearts.” You feel a little queasy, which you didn’t think zombies could feel.

“I know it ain’t the most pleasant thing in the world, killing isn’t fun, trust me. I was ‘blessed’ by being born as one of Satan’s children, and that’s the price I have to pay.” He sighs heavily and you almost feel sorry for him.

“The only perk to it is that when I eat their souls, I feel whole. Like I have my own...and it’s so nice. It’s what I look forward to; to feel complete.” He whispers. Dave looks a little surprised he shared this information with you, and steps away with a light blush. “Sorry, I’m revealing too much.” He runs up the steps in a flash, and you are left standing there with a confused look on your face. Rose looks up and smiles knowingly at you. You shiver.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Dave's perspective. Where Dave is super angsty and hormonal and John is an insensitive asshole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay we meet the family--sorta. I wrote Dave to be sorta whiny in this chapter, though he won't be like this all the time! Also Roxy isn't always a goofy drunk because I hate it when she's always portrayed that way. So enjoy and chapter 5 will be up in a day or two. Again don't forget to comment, review, bookmark or kudos! We appreciate all the love we have gotten!! So thanks!!

**Chapter Four**

****

Your name is now Dave Strider and only minutes ago you learned a guy you killed is back from the dead as the worlds most fucking awkward person...no, wait--zombie. Ugh, and you remember too how you happened upon him, just a naive human--they all were naive. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time; he scared your prey away so you had to make due. He was lunch, and holy fuck was his soul divine. Crisp clear and as light as a breeze. He was true freedom locked inside a dorky 19 year old boy. And a fucking good looking one at that. Though now he was a walking corpse, and hell if you were into necrophilia, though no one would put it past a demon, you suppose.

A demon, a piece of scum formed by Mr. Hell dude himself. You weren’t lying when you said to John how you were ‘blessed’ to live the life you were living. You mean this in the most sarcastic way possible of course, being a demon was the shit, and not the good kind either. And look at you now, hiding away in your bedroom like a fucking pussy, just ‘cause you forgot the pact with yourself, to not get close with anyone...to maintain a distance. Telling your life story wasn’t going to help with that, was it? Good going, _Strider_. You had made it explicitly clear to everyone that you weren’t going to actually care for the suckers who you were just going to kill, and here you are spilling your guts (not literally) to some undead guy. Bro and Dirk were gonna get on your case, that much you knew. Whatever, you had to face them soon. The others would be back anyways, John could meet the family...then possibly join it? Or was that desperate sounding? Fuck, this was harder than it seemed it was going to be.

“David! Get your ass down here now, everyone’s going to be home soon and brooding up there isn’t helping anything! You know how Mother gets when her favorite son isn’t waiting for her!” A nagging voice calls up at you and you try to fight off an annoyed reply. “And David, may I remind you that you have to explain why we have a new addition to our little group!” You groan loudly and she mocks you.

“Fuck, fine! I’m coming down!” You almost scream back at her. You usually try to keep your temper down, to remain cool under pressure, but you were born with a temper. Bro and Dirk had one too, but yours was worse, and the other guy who got on the wrong side of it never lived long to tell the tale.

Forcing yourself to move, you sluggishly make your way down the stairs to see a pissed off vampire and a scared and concerned looking zombie. _Don’t forget hot_ \--You mentally slap yourself. _No_ , Dave, he isn’t hot. Dead bodies are not hot. They never will be hot. This would be different if it was, like, one of those cute ghost girls that always show up in movies and shit, but this is a reanimated corpse that thrives on brains and other mortal bodily meats. That is not hot. On a scale from one to five, one being the lowest on the hot-o-meter, this is like a negative one million. Not hot. Not hot at all. Frozen fucking tundra.

You take a sideways glance at John. He seems slightly uneasy on top of his previously-mentioned concern, probably because he’s about to come face to face with a gang of witches, werewolves, and demons. You guess anyone would be uneasy in these circumstances. This house was a regular ‘ol monster mash. Just throw in some Frankenstein’s monsters and mummies and maybe, you don’t know, an invisible man or something. Then you’d be set to film a music video with a guy singing in a Boris Karloff impression. Hooray.

The door opens suddenly and the first one to come in is also the first one to tackle you in a hug.

“Dave Dave Dave Dave!” She smiles, forcing you to hear the pure oozing happiness in her voice. You have never heard a happier werewolf in your life. “I wasn’t sure you’d be back when we came home, but you are! Hooray!”

You look back at John, a perfectly deadpan look plastered on your face. “I wasn’t lying when I said ‘peppy’.” You remark.

“Alright doggie. Sit, stay, heel, whatever.” Someone else remarks, and looking over her black mess of hair you see one of your brothers--Dirk, not the one oh-so-cleverly named Bro. He makes shooing motions with his hands. “Get offa’ him before you give him fleas.”

She huffs, but steps away from you anyway, crossing her arms. “I do not have fleas.” She whines slightly.

It’s only now anybody bothers to notice the zombie standing there awkwardly, as everyone was too busy being occupied by her almost tackle-hugging you and the others filing in. Dirk is the first to really to say anything. He looks John up and down once before saying “So who’s the dead dude and why isn’t he eating us? I thought zombies were supposed to wreak havoc and kill people.” John knits his eyebrows.

“I’m not going to wreak havoc! Jeez, I just kill a girl once and everyone thinks I’m bad!” He whines loudly and you force yourself not to smack your face in embarrassment. “And anyway, why the fuck are you even talking? _You’re all monsters!_ ” He hisses the last words like the they were the most foul of curses. Oh shit, was it going to go down or what.

Everyone crowding in the doorway pauses and stares at him. You can see both your brothers tense up, their breathing barely visible, ready for the attack. Jake and Jade start to growl menacingly, which would make you laugh if you hadn’t seen them tear a guy in half. That wasn’t so funny. Kanaya rushes to Rose’s side, and now she’s baring her fangs at John. Roxy is blissfully drunk; she seemed to be playing with Dirk’s wifebeater. Did someone forget to tell her not to drink at like 11 in the morning? Mother steps into the middle of the mess, her usual happy and relaxed manner stiff and hostile.

“Dave, why do you have a zombie in our home? And how dare should he insult our family.” Her voice is measured and even, but you can’t deny the icy grip that’s encircled around it. John physically shrinks back and it looks like you have to play hero here.

“Well Mom, this is John Egbert and he was one of my victims.” You say flatly and everyone stares at you except Rose who just looks bored. “Anyways, he has to rise from the dead and find me getting another snack for later. And the poor guy had nowhere to go, so I graciously asked him if he’d like to stay in our huge ass Victorian Mansion, ‘cause, hell, we’re loaded and have space.” It’s silent for a couple minutes until Mother speaks. It was under her ownership and she was the boss around here; she was the one to gather you all together anyway.

“I see, well then, David, he’s your responsibility then. ” She says curtly, giving John another once over. Smiling warmly at John, she takes his hand into hers and squeezes it. “Welcome to our family dear. I am not a lady who ignores any monster or person of the night in need.” John stares at her in amazement, before letting a toothy smile out.

_And fuck--did he have buck teeth? How did you not notice this earlier? So cute!--No...not cute, never cute! He’s not cute!_

Who were you kidding, you were so smitten for the guy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets the tour of his lifetime or...deathtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Chapter 5 is now finished and chapter 6 is on its way. Don't forget to comment, kudos, or bookmark! We love hearing your feedback.

**Chapter 5**

****

You are now again John and wow, were these people intimidating. The Strider brothers were still wary of you, and so was the male werewolf dude. They passed you by, and you swear you could hear a death threat or two come your way. It scared you shitless, but then you realized you couldn’t die. They laughed at you and continued up the staircase. Dave clenches his fists at this, a very stoic and cold expression on his face right now.

Rose and Kanaya are talking quietly to each other. Kanaya seems like she’s a whole foot taller than Rose. Dark ebony skin and a regal posture. She was so beautiful in the most classic sense, it made you dizzy. No wonder Rose had the hots for her. The both of them walk away hand in hand and you feel a twinge of jealousy, which again surprises you, since hey, you’re dead! You shouldn’t be worried about matters such as romance.

Since Mom declared that you were an a-okay fella, most everyone has seemed to calm down about you kinda-sorta accidentally insulting them. But hey, come on, who were they to judge? That younger Strider brother with the eye-gougingly pointy shades kind of insulted you there, you had to stand your ground--Well, what little ground you had. But now, at the very least, that werewolf chick seems okay with you now. As everyone is leaving, she’s eagerly chatting you up.

“Dave doesn’t usually bring home guests, he isn’t all that social, y’know?” She chirps, smiling at you. “So you must be really special!”

“I’m special enough to not stay dead.” You reply with a nervous chuckle. ‘Special’, what did that even mean? You’re just John Egbert, that kid who died one day because his heart ended up missing, you weren’t special. Not that much, anyway.

She laughs. “Well, yeah, but I mean special in a _different_ way! Because come on, it isn’t like him to sweep lil’ guys and gals off their feet and bring ‘em home to meet the family.” Suddenly she gasps and nudges you slightly, winking behind her shiny round glasses. “Maybe he likes you!”

You raise an eyebrow. “...Likes me, really? He sure doesn’t show it.”

“He doesn’t show anything.” She remarks. She should know, you figure. She appears to always wear her heart proudly broadcasted on her sleeves. “Well, except brooding angst. Hehe, maybe he should be the vampire ‘stead of Kanaya and Rose!”

“What language is ‘Kanaya’ anyway? Like, really really ancient Mesopotamian?”

“She never told us. Oh, I’ll ask when I can catch her alone, just for you!”

You’re starting to like this werewolf chick. Unlike Dave, who was probably writing depressing poetry and listening to emo bands in his room, or Rose, who was probably cutting out sections of Shakespeare's lesser-known works to paste on a coffin-shaped cork board, this werewolf seemed really happy in spite of her lycanthropy. You are actually quite pleased with having a different personality in the room. “Thanks. Oh, hey, you’re...Jade, right? Dave mentioned you at the gate.”

She nods, her eyes lighting up, apparently thrilled Dave took the time to bother mentioning her. “That’s me! Oh, and don’t you mind Jake being all mean to you. He’s really really defensive. It’s kinda an alpha wolf thing, you know? He has to be the leader of, like, ten werewolves! That’s a lot of people to look after, and, well, it really stresses him out.”

There’s a quick pause as you process this. Jade didn’t look that much younger then that other werewolf guy--Maybe one or two years, tops--And weren’t alpha wolves, like, old? You decide to not insult him as you say, “So, there’s like a whole wolf pack around here?”

“Oh, of course there is!” She laughs, rolling her eyes slightly, as though this should be an obvious thing that most anyone should know. “Me and Jake and eight others! We’re all really close friends, at least, I am, but I’m pretty much friends with everyone!”

Yeah, you couldn’t see her having an enemy to save her life. She smiles at you widely and hey, you made a new friend! There should be achievement music or something to celebrate this victory. An annoyed voice calls down from the stairs.

“Oi, Jade! We need to meet up with the others, so get your coat!” It sounds like her older brother Jake, though you aren’t sure. The only noises he made at you were growls, and, well, you couldn’t go by that. Jade groans next to you and takes your hand, squeezing it in a friendly manner.

“Sorry John, but I gotta go! Pack meetings and all, life isn’t always easy as the Beta you know.” She runs off to meet her older brother by the stairs. You hear some arguing between them before he shoots you a nasty glare. Jade looks pretty pissed, and you really hope you didn’t do anything. But you most likely did.

A sharp “Hey, Egbert.” Sounds behind you and you shriek. You hear footsteps running into the room and Dirk comes thundering in, apparently in a slight panic. When he sees it’s just you being a crazy wuss though, he huffs and calms down. “Never mind guys! Just Dave’s pet zombie, probably saw a centipede or something.”

You frown hard, crossing your arms. “I did not!” You’re not scared of bugs. You were, once, when a giant spider crawled onto your English homework and you sort of flipped the fuck out and stabbed it repeatedly with your pen. But you got over that. “I just don’t like people startling me, that’s all.”

Dave’s just laughing his ass off now, as he makes his way back to the parlor, and you really feel like punching him in those pretty red eyes! Whoa...where the fuck did that thought come? Certainly far out from left field, or maybe it was right field. Okay, those baseball metaphors were lost now, but what you were trying to say was, _why did you just think that the demon who stole your fucking heart had pretty eyes?_ Okay, when you placed it like that it sounded really sappy and romantic, but he literally stole your heart and fucking ate it.

Dirk is still calling you rude names and you’re about to snap. Dave has apparently seen how you went from slightly not okay, to extremely not okay, since he stopped laughing and has a very concerned look. Well as concerned as an “I really do not give a fuck.” face could be. Just when you’re about to say something, Rose comes in with a furious face.

“Dirk Strider, on behalf of my Mother, Kanaya, Roxy, and myself, we would very much enjoy it if you fucking _stop_ berating our guests.” Her words are frozen and you can almost feel goosebumps on your skin. But you don’t, since you’re dead. Dirk stops and eyes her for a bit before leaving. You turn to thank Rose, and she nods her head in acknowledgement.

“It’s quite alright John, my older half brother does not need to treat you like metaphorical shit. He is a mature 120 year old demon who is in desperate need of letting things go.” She smiles at you and grin weakly back.

Looking at you for a bit, she finally takes a hold of your arm and begins to speak. “To take your mind off of things, let me and Dave tour you around our grand home, so you get a sense of your bearings.”

You don’t like Dirk much. Maybe nobody does. It’s why his name rhymes with ‘jerk’. You nod, deciding a tour might be worth it, so you don’t look like a tool stumbling around in the middle of the night trying to get some crackers. “Sounds fun.”

Rose smiles lightly and goes off, dragging you along, Dave following slowly behind. Dave was right when he said that Rose had decorated half the house like an emo thespian; as you enter the dining hall you see it’s decorated with a long, black-metal-and-glass claw-footed table and chairs with the same dusty velvet as the couches before. Behind the table are cabinets of fine white-and-black china, though you swear those black patterns make words...Maybe of ancient dark spells? You wouldn’t put it past them.

You’re led into the kitchen and _god fucking damn is it white_. The tiled floor is black and white, the ‘fridge is white, the stove is silver and white, white white white white white white white. You’re reaching Vanilla Ice, no, snowman levels of white in this room. You can’t handle the white. Too white. It’s glowing. You cover your eyes with a free hand.

Once you’re out of that horrific place which is obviously where Mr. Clean lurks behind the dishwasher, you’re led around to a small room that’s connected to both the parlor and the kitchen, behind the stairs. There’s a bathroom here, and you check it out. It’s a nice full bath, but the only thing really interesting is the shower curtain. It shows a silhouette of a man holding a knife and lots of prints of blood at the bottom, even two resembling handprints. Well, you have a good idea that nobody washes in _that_ shower.

Next, you’re led upstairs into a hallway and lots of bedrooms. The doors all have signs on them so you can tell the rooms apart, some in cut-out magazine letters, some written in markers. Rose shows you her room first. There’s no coffin-shaped cork board, though there is black bookshelves holding fine literature and probably a Necronomicon somewhere in there. There’s no bed, only two coffins laying on the floor, one lined in purple velvet, the other in dark green. Rose sure did like velvet. There was a vanity desk on the far wall, framed by a circular window and covered in makeup and scraps of cloth and balls of yarn. A mannequin stands next to it in a half-made dress.

Dave is reluctant to show off his room, but soon he grumbles out an ‘okay, fine’ and opens the door. Dave and Dirk must share a room, because the second the door opens you’re treated with un-Dave-ish-things. Like robots, for one. There’s a lot of scrap metal and circuity littering the floor. If you tilt your head, you can see what appears to be a bunk bed, made of thick wood with lots of mini-shelves carved into it. Two dressers are built into the wall, a makeshift closet made in a little square-ish indent in the wall between the dressers. There’s a few Dave-ish things in there, too, like a big turntable set and a stack of thick headphones and a few spare shades, for good measure. There’s no shelf containing hearts, meaning Dave is a dirty rotten liar.

Dirk’s in the room, and he’s propped in front of the closet, fiddling with some ventriloquist dummy. He looks up suddenly.

“Who the fuck told you to come into my room?” He’s now pointing at you, and his shades are off so you can see fiery orange eyes boring holes into you. You gulp nervously, but Dave steps in front of Dirk.

“Bro, I know you’re sexually struggling right now, but calm down.” You feel even more lost and embarrassed right now, and you sure as hell don’t want to understand what Dave was exactly getting at right there. “And anyways it’s our room, and John is welcome in my room any time.” His voice gets softer when you says your name, which is odd, you must say.

Dirk is sitting there in a confused manner before slowly grinning up at Dave. Dave just yells at him to shut the fuck up. Then you see a huge blur and the somehow end up having huge katanas in their hands. Go figure. Rose is looking at them, bored, and she takes your arm and drags you out of their room.

“Don’t mind them, they’re both having issues right now.” She says with a snarky tone, grinning slightly at you. “Come, now, more house to show you.”

As Rose tells you, you’re not allowed in Bro and Mom’s room. Nobody is, except for, well, Bro and Mom. Unless it’s life-or-death or you’re throwing up all over the good carpeting, you don’t enter Bro and Mom’s room. End of story.

She leads you past Jade and Jake’s room (you suppose you’ll just see that when Jade comes back, maybe Rose has a thing against opening doors to bedrooms without permission) and you get to take a gander at another bathroom. This one smells thickly of vanilla. The soap is supposed to smell like grapefruit. The bar of soap is made of lemon and shea butter. Around this time you wonder if Jade is buying the stuff for this bathroom. The shower curtain this time has a print of red rubber ducks that look like devils. If you need a shower sometime, you’re going to _this_ bathroom, obviously.

The last part of the house is the spire, which is revealed to be Roxy’s bedroom. Only, it’s not so much of a ‘bedroom’, rather, a miniature lab with lots of papers and computers laying around. Frankly you didn’t expect her to be into this stuff. From the looks of it, it’s all human biology and things. Here and there there’s a game system not connected to anything, ranging from an Atari 2600 to an XBOX 360 and anything inbetween. She doesn’t have an actual bed, rather, it’s a hide-a-bed, which reasonably could be folded up to form a black metal-and-cushion sofa. However, it seems it’s never been folded back into it’s couch state and is now littered with pink blankets and throw pillows. Cleverly hidden in the corner is a small mini-fridge and a cooler-on-wheels one would move around with a remote control. Deciding Rose wouldn’t mind, you sneak a peek into the ‘fridge. Keystone Light, Steel Reserve, Nude Beach, Schlitz, Carta Blanca, and a few Mike’s Hard Lemonades. So, alcohol. How she crammed all this into a single mini-fridge is a mystery to you.

With the tour of the manor over, you’re led back down the spire-steps into the bedroom area. You take a glance up to see a trapdoor on the ceiling, a little cord dangling down. When you ask about it, Rose tells you that it’s the second most-forbidden place in the house, just slightly under Bro and Mom’s room. You also don’t go in there, even if it is life or death. Just trust her on this one.

Nodding, you follow her back downstairs. “Now John, there’s also some very important rules you need to follow in this home. Rules that could either keep you alive or kill you, if you don’t follow them, of course. Since you are technically considered a child of the night, or a monster in other words, these laws pertain to you.”

You find yourself nodding along, and put a hand to your hair, but take out a huge clump of it. Rose looks at you with a little bit of shock and disgust, and you drop the hair awkwardly. Just what you needed, male pattern baldness. It sucked being dead.

“Anyways, the first law is that you cannot tell any humans about the World of Night. Humans have been hunting the children to extinction, and to keep our people safe, we cannot tell a soul. This is the most important rule of the Book of Night.” You look at her confused and she explains that the Book of Night is their lawbook.

She runs through more and more laws, and you find yourself falling asleep out of boredom. So many laws on how to treat humans and other “children”; fuck, couldn’t she just stop talking? She finally finished the long spiel about how werewolves couldn’t drive right before a new moon when Dave came in. He was tattered and bloody, with a couple of gashes on his face. Rose only rolled her eyes and sighed, while you rushed to his side asking him if he needed help. He pushed you away and you furrowed your eyebrows. He didn’t have to be so rude! What was his problem? Rose gave him a questioning glance before he flipped his lid. And boy, did he ever.

Dave went full demon, you guess; well, either that or you were hallucinating on the embalming fluids pumped through you. He grew large rams horns and a long spiked tail. His teeth grew sharp and pointed and long protruding claws grew out of his fingertips. You think some hellfire surrounded his being, which was...scary as fuck.

Rose looked up annoyed and snapped her fingers in his face. “Brother, calm down before you give yourself a stroke. You’re also scaring away John, and I know how much you want to impress him. Also those shades look ridiculous on you as a demon, I mean really, David.” She crossed her arms and Dave changed back, a pouty look on his face. You were standing there shocked, the feeling of running like hell going through your body.

He looked at you with an apologetic glance, but you were out of there, running away from that monster.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where John goes full fledged zombie and we learn about Dave's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Chapter 6, our longest yet. I cannot believe we're so far and it's only been a week or so! Thanks for all the nice comments and kudos and bookmarks! We enjoy that you like our fic and we'll continue it as long as we can! So please do continue giving us feedback, kudos and bookmarks! Chapter 7 will be on its way soon! See you until then.

**Chapter 6**

Through the magic of the written language, time sped up magically and it is now three and a half weeks later.

Nothing amazing happened in this lapse of time, nothing worth noting. You found out Roxy owned a small cat, which shouldn’t really have surprised you. As seeing witches did generally have small animals as familiars to help with magic and shit. And nothing else really happened with the family. You did, however, watch movies with Jake, but his taste in movies was mediocre, and you didn’t really bond over it. What a shame.

But most of all, you ignored Dave. It unnerved you that this dude could turn into a fucking ram demon and be surrounded in hellfire. Seriously, that wasn’t that cool. Rose tried getting you to talk to him, but you refused.

After a while, people stopped talking to you, but you could understand why. You started to change, you got more hungry...and thought processing was slower and slower. Talking came out as grunts and groans more often than not. You suppose you were going full zombie. No one cared much anymore though, you became background noise in their lives, only Jade would mumble a happy good morning, but otherwise you were alone.

This pattern continued about two more weeks in, and by then you had given up talking. A weird insatiable hunger rippled through you more often now, the hunger of human flesh. The nice spare bedroom was becoming a mess on where you carelessly destroyed things. They only noticed your odd absence when you failed to come down for two days straight.

Rose burst into your room one day, time’s presence meaningless to you now. You got up shakily, only to charge at her, snarling. Her eyes grew wide, and you tried to claw at her. She smelled human enough, good enough to eat. She shoved you away, and you ended up being flung to the wall. Rose apparently worked out, otherwise it was just the super-duper vampire powers. She yelled for help, but that didn’t stop you from trying to get up. You killed a girl before, you could do it again. What made her so different from the gravekeeper way back when? They were made of the same things. Meat. Blood. Flesh.

Brains.

And, if you knew anything about Rose from the time you lived here, it’s that she had a damn impressive brain.

You stumble up, more determined than ever. You’re hungry, goddamnit, and if they’re not going to feed you, you’re just going to have to get food yourself. No matter what the tragic cost.

Who’d really miss her, anyway? Kanaya? Roxy? Mom? Maybe Jade? All insignificant. Their feelings, their rules, their mannerisms--Their beings. They were foodstuffs now, and that’s all they ever were from the start. You had this divine moment of clarity and now you know that you never really liked them, never longed for friendship and affections. What you wanted was food. Friendships don’t fill bellies.

She’s speaking, but you don’t hear her. You just want to feel her nice, pale skin against your tongue. You could almost shiver in this anticipation.

You walk three steps over and she punches your nose clean off.

Not like you really needed it, but that was your nose! You liked your nose! You needed to reattach that, quick. What was sticky around here...? You didn’t care right now.

Unflinching, you clutch her shoulders. There’s no chisel this time, no girl hitting you with a shovel. Just a dumb (metaphorically) blond and her fists. You throw your weight onto her and she almost shrugs you off before swiftly clutching you around the neck. It doesn’t hurt, but it still feels a little...Choking. You emit a strangled hiss from the back of your tattered larynx.

She tut-tuts you, shaking her head slowly. Then she’s doing that thing where she speaks out loud again. You wish she’d stop doing that. But she isn’t quite talking to you the full time. She’s berating someone else. What was it’s name? It--No, no, it had a gender. It seems so far, you can’t even remember. But who needed genders and names? Mortal concepts. Food is food is food. You can make out his favorite color, though. It’s orange. The orange one is holding something silver and sharp--A sword? You think you saw one before somewhere in this house--And looks ready to decapitate you, or at least stab you straight through the eye until bits of rotted brain matter are leaking from the sword’s tip.

You almost wish you could feel disgusted from the mental image of this you just conjured.

She’s making him set it down. Someone else comes next to him, another male, this one in forest green or something of the sort. He, too, looks ready to kill you, though forest green seems more ready to rip your limbs off then stab you in the eye. Rose (how do you know her name? It just sounds right, but...) also tells _him_ to not go about doing the thing where he kills you. You don’t make out the details, but you make out both the words ‘friend’ and ‘guest’. Both the words make you cringe. Friends? Guest in this hell of a manor? No thank you. He’d just take his brains and leave, even if he wound up just a disembodied hand in the process.

She hoists you up, not letting go of your neck. You struggle and flail, but orange twists your body so your ankles and wrists are all lined up next to each other and stabs you right through them, effectively pinning your limbs with a sword. Now forest green is lecturing orange on account of that was fucking gross. Orange does not seem to give a fuck.

Rose doesn’t seem to care either way, as long as you’re not moving around so much. She drags you downstairs as you hiss and spit and growl defiantly, letting her know that she will never get the best of you, not now, not ever.

****

~

****

On account of the fact that knowing what people are saying is about to become important, as will knowing the names of these people, you decide to now be Dave Strider, and holy hell has the last month and some weeks been shit. John had disappeared from your life, which was killing you slowly. Just that measly time spent with him, you’d fallen hard and _every fucking one_ knew that, except for the man of the hour. Which he is again, apparently over time zombies go more feral and lose it. Which was exactly what was happening now. Dirk had pinned him with a sword, while Rose was carrying him like a sack of flour. Jake was next to Dirk’s side freaking out and growling under his breath. Seeing him like that made your nonexistent heart break even more.

A couple weeks back you all had a family conference discussing John and what to do with him. He was starting to rot more every day, and you could all tell he was sucumbing to the virus, or whatever made him undead. Fixing it was important, and your Mother and Roxy got ready a solution to get his body back into tip top living shape. The only ‘messy’ part was that he had to have his soul back, which meant a favor from Dad.

****

~

****

You were in fact one of the sons of Satan. There were about a million of you on this earth, which meant Dad really got around a lot. But asking favors from the Devil himself was nerve wracking, no matter how much he ‘loved’ you. But you had to do it, had to save John. So you went to Hell about a week ago to retrieve the soul.

All the energy demons take from humans gets transported to Hell, where Dad takes it all and uses it. The demon gets their food and so does Dad; it’s a win-win situation for the takers, but not the victims, you guess. Unless you were an incubus or minor demon who didn’t kill the victim for their energy.

But visiting Dad was always fun, if you were a sadistic bastard, which you weren’t. Dad looked at you when you came down there like you had grown a third eye or something. You were once Dad’s favorite, one of his first demons he spawned. Your life was relatively evil, before you turned a new leaf. You were one of the oldest demons around, over 3,000 years, but hell if you were going to say that to anyone. No one knew your real story, and you had to keep it that way. You didn’t exactly go around with a shirt that said ‘Satan’s #1 homie’ on it, so really you weren’t about to even tell people _that_ little tidbit, much less your backstory that was mostly boring and slightly depressing.

Actually waltzing up and asking Satan for a soul back--That’s something different entirely. You want a fast tract to eternal damnation, become a demon then ask for a soul you took back. Boom, damnation. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. So, yeah, goes without saying that Beelzebub was pretty damn pissed. He probably would have speared you into a nice and toasty Dave-kabob if you weren’t daddy’s little boy. It was like asking him for a credit card.

Except not like that at all. What a fucking stupid analogy.

Lucifer (how many names did the devil have? Jesus. Wait, no, you couldn’t say that when talking about Satan, right? Oh, never mind) was basically making it rain fire and brimstone as the tortured souls of Hell flocked to you. Pick me, they said. I’ll be your friend. I’ll be your lover. I’ve got huge tits. You didn’t believe the third one. You know for a fact she stuffs her spiritual bra. But that’s beside the point. You ignore the pleading souls and cross your arms and firmly ask him for one special soul: John Egbert’s. He seems even more pissed that, of all the souls he had hangin’ around here, you just had to go and pick that one. Why that one, he asks? He has so many souls, why the one of John Egbert’s?

He then looked at you and smiled, that knowing smile that always pissed you off. Love, he said, was a foolish reason to save someone. You just flicked him off and he laughed. You knew the whole lecture by heart. You don’t love someone because attachments to people is just gonna break your fragile ‘lil heart in two. You love for the sake of breaking hearts and banging hoes (okay, he didn’t phrase it that way, something about lust or some shit but he meant banging hoes), not because you want to be in a family with this guy. Have some kids or something. That was strictly a no-go.

You say you don’t care, you just need it back. Now. He smiles wider and says he likes seeing you squirm. Of course he does. Of course he gets some sick joy out of watching you beg. Thanks, _Dad_. You know someone who is certainly not getting a ‘world’s best Dad’ coffee mug for father’s day this year.

To your surprise, he tosses you a set of keys. He tells you John’s soul resides in neither here nor there, not in the cloudy paradise or the brimstone hell. He’s just sort of in limbo, unable to pass to one or the other because his body is not at rest. You’re going to have to buckle down and find him yourself. This, like many things when regarding Satan, was far easier said than actually done. Hell was a big place, and so was that place up above if stories were anything to go by, but Limbo covered almost the entire globe. Unless you got damn lucky, you could spend years looking for a soul there and never get one. However, you have to take your chances. For the family. For you. For John.

You leave with the keys, cocky determination plastered on your face. You know exactly where to go to reach the Limbo door; when you were younger you would play with the trapped souls to get your mind off of the horrors you’d stumble upon if you were in the ironic-punishment part of Hell. With the shit you saw there, it’s a wonder you didn’t turn out all messed up. Well, more messed up then you already are, all things considered.

You unlock the door and open it. Limbo opened up in front of you, and you looked back into the bleak place you spent years playing in. It was a monochromatic world, filled with lost souls trying to escape; you had to close the door, otherwise they’d escape and Dad wouldn’t be too happy about that. After closing the door you had to search, had to find John’s soul again, which wasn’t that hard, you knew exactly what to look for.

Closing your eyes, you opened up your senses; find the cool spring breeze and freedom that was his soul. And soon you picked up it’s scent which meant, bam, let’s get a cracking on obtaining that soul! Transforming fully into your demonic self (it was the only way to survive Limbo) you let leathery wings unfurl from your back. Ah flying, how you missed flying. Stretching them out, you jumped into Limbo and flew to the scent of John’s soul.

Finding it at last, you took it and bottled it. Leaving Limbo, you left Hell without saying goodbye to Pops. You were done with him, you’d turned that new leaf over, if you stayed there any longer, you probably would have subcumbed to his persuasive bidding. You couldn’t have that.

Not again.

You burst out of that antique full-length mirror. Just to spite dad, you kick it over so it lands on a pile of boxes filled with old catalogues. Way to stick it to the man, Dave.

****

~

 

And now, here you were, with your crush tied into a pretzel with the help of your brother’s sword, hissing like a cat. You, holding the bottle again, rolling it back and forth. Jake, complaining. As he often is.

“And what does compel you to think this’ll work, anyhow?” He asks. He’s finally stopped complaining about Dirk’s method of keeping John down and has gone onto other topics. “Not to complain, but even on the _best_ days the magic around here is good enough for a few mundane tasks, to even do something like this--W-well, what are you!? You’d have to be--” He pauses on a word and settles on “Insane”, though you had a gut feeling he was just about to say “Intoxicated” before stopping himself. Roxy is sober, actually, you can tell from the little glass of fruit-flavored water she’s swirling about. You can’t be entirely sure about Mom’s alcohol level, but come on, whatever. She’s not passed out.

“I do trust they’ve worked this out between themselves.” Rose assures him, but he clearly is not convinced.

“I’m just saying that--Well, it’s hardly _civil_ \--”

“‘Civil.’” Dirk mocks in a poor British accent. “Yeah, you were about ready to throw John’s head out the window up there. Civil my ass.”

“B--I was only trying to save her from the bloke! Besides, you were hardly any better, about to stab him like a little steak or something, you’re not one to criticize.”

“If you didn’t _notice_ , I’m the one actually doing things to help the family around here, Mister My-Dog-Friends-Need-Me-Now.”

“Oh, that’s just rude! They’re hardly _dogs_ , they’re--”

“Jake. Dirk.” For the first time since she entered the parlor, Roxy speaks, pointing at the both of them. “If ‘yah know what’s good for ‘yah, ‘yah’d shut it around now.”

Thanks, Roxy, for nicely saying what you wanted to say.

They both reluctantly shut up, though you can see them glaring at one another and sticking out tongues childishly. You know two men who aren’t getting laid tonight, that’s for sure.

Rose sets John down on the ground, angling the sword so it wouldn’t mess up the flooring. She retreats a step or two when John attempts to bite her ankle, and it’s only now you realize he’s missing his nose. God he looks weird without a nose. You hope he gets that back when he’s humanized, otherwise you’re dating Lord Voldemort (if he’d date you, that is). Which would be a great conversation starter, sure, but not a good boyfriend.

Mom comes into the room with an air of dignity about her, some jars of potions and odd herbs juggled in her hands. Two wands stick out of her back pocket of worn jeans. Casual witch Wednesday, huh. She looks at Roxy, then you and smiles. “You have the soul David?” You nod nervously, pulling out the beautifully appetizing soul contained in the jar.

“Yeah, Dad wasn’t too thrilled with me taking it.” Dirk stiffens noticeably at the mention of your shared father. None of the defected demons really liked hearing about Dad. Roxy and Mom nod while they place the ingredients in the order they needed them to be. Taking out both wands, they look at you.

“Ready?” Roxy asks. You nod and unscrew the cap.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John is turned human and they all go out to eat Chinese food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Yay! Chapter 7!!!!! We finally got this out, and I'm sorry it took so long wow. This is what happens when both of the writers are lazy ass people. But wow! Thanks for all the kudos and bookmarks! Keep them up! But please do comment, my friend and I want to know if we could improve anything or if you're really liking how this is going! So please comment, kudos, and bookmark! Chapter 8 should come out soon, hopefully. Until then, ciao!

 

**Chapter 7**

****

Your name is now...

Wait, wait, give it a minute. Geesh, it feels like someone ran your head through a cotton candy machine. It’s clearing up now and everything you know is patching back together. Right, right! Your name is John Egbert, and you’re standing in a parlor room with a bunch of people--Monsters, you mean--Staring at you in a mixed myriad of emotions. There’s Mom and Roxy looking at you like they did something grand, which you have no fucking clue could be. There’s Dirk and Jake looking apprehensive of the whole situation, and themselves, which was odd since weren’t they a thing? Then there’s Jade looking really excited and nervous, but mostly excited. Rose and Kanaya are stony cold, for the one exception of an upturned smirk from Rose. And last but not least...there’s Dave. He’s looking at you intensely, which makes your stomach flip flop weirdly. Not like you really experienced before, well...at least not in a while, not since you stopped being in love with _her_.

“Sooo...What all happened here?” You smile a bit and laugh, trying to lighten the stillness of the room. It doesn’t appear to be working, and for a minute it looks like nobody even heard you until Jake says something.

“Well, don’t ‘cha know...Haha...It actually worked.” He looks to you, then Roxy, then Mom, then back to you. “I never doubted them for a second, John, I’ll have you know--”

Dirk groans loudly. “Oh shut it English. Twenty seconds ago you were whining that they weren’t going to do anything more then blow his fucking head off.”

“...That’s quite the hyperbole of my concerns.”

“It’s not _inaccurate_ hyperbole.”

“Hey, you two!” Roxy snaps, crossing her arms and staring both Dirk and Jake down. She has a way with staring people down. If looks could kill, man... “I’m still watchin’ ‘yah, ‘yah hear me?”

She also appears to have a way with making those two shut their traps, because the instant her tone implies smiting they’re quick to not make a sound. That doesn’t stop them from doing various gestures at one another, ranging from ‘childish’ to ‘threatening’.

You laugh another awkward chuckle. “Ah, somebody planning on telling me what happened or...?”

“You got a haircut.” Dave replies in that perfectly deadpan way of his. Realizing you’re genuinely confused, however, he gestures to you. “Come on, isn’t it obvious?”

You look down at yourself...And stumble back a little in surprise. “W--What the--Oh my god!”

For the first time since awaking in that box so long ago, you fully think you’re human. This time, however, it isn’t a delusion caused by misinformation, darkness, and lots of dirt. No, no, this time it’s absolutely the truth. Your skin is in tact, not peeling and squishy and icky like it was before. And apparently being restored to human washes your clothes, because you certainly don’t recall your shirt being this nice-looking before! This is amazing, this is fantastic--Spectacular, even! Nothing matters now, you’re just so elated about this.

“I--This is fantastic!” You cheer, hugging yourself and by extension making yourself look like a total dweeb. Well, more of a dweeb then they already thought you were. Then to make you look even dweebier, your stomach growls. Maybe it was the fact you didn’t eat in the whatever days you were dead, or maybe it was a becoming alive again thing, but you were starving. This thoroughly breaks the tension in the room and everyone starts laughing.

“What?” you say, confused. Jade comes up to pat you on the back and giggles.

“Hey John, wanna go out to eat? Me and Jake are pretty hungry as well, you could join us, perhaps!”

“Well ‘a course I wanna join in on the eating, I’m hankering for an open bar and food. Hells yeah!” Roxy laughs lightly.

“If we are going to an open bar count me and Bro in, we have some drinking games to play, bets to win, gambling to ensue.” Mom grinned, and the look she was giving Bro was kind of odd...oh, well. Dirk grumbles something about that he’d go too if everyone else was going. Dave slipped by your side and said wherever you were going he was going.

Everyone looked at him with a strange look, and you could feel color rising to your face. But he quickly said that you were best bros, and had to stick together. Your stomach tightened at that, but hell if you knew why; weren’t you supposed to be relieved at that?

Kanaya and Rose agreed to go, only if it was a Chinese restaurant (an odd qualification, but you weren’t about to question the vampires who could hypothetically punch your nose off). Everyone else agreed to those terms, so in couple of minutes everyone headed outside to the multiple cars. Bro and Mom entered a fancy red sports car, which looked like it would go about a bazillion miles per hour if given the chance. It fits them well, you thought. Dirk took out a beautiful motorcycle, while Jake looked lost where to go. Jade offered him her outdoorsy military jeep and he gladly accepted. Rose and Kanaya board a hearse, which makes you laugh really hard; oh, the irony.

You look at Dave and he grins at you happily. He goes into the garage and starts up a very loud car, it sounded like it had muffler problems. And holy fucking hell...what was that? That was apparently Dave’s baby, a rusty red Ford pickup truck from like a billion years ago. And now you were riding around in that deathtrap with him.

You voiced your concerns very clearly, you made sure of that. He just rolled his eyes and blasted _Highway to Hell_ and chuckled happily. God did you want to kiss his cocky, smug little face--Wait...NO!

Your face lit up and stayed red for the rest of the ride to the restaurant. Dave doesn’t seem to take a notice to your facial expression, and if he does, he doesn’t mention it.

The crummy truck is the last one to make it to the restaurant, no surprise considering it’s a fucking truck competing with the likes of a motorbike, a jeep, and a sports car. You are slightly surprised the hearse beat you, though. How fast can a hearse actually go? You should ask sometime.

Still a bit on a high from being human again, you drag Dave into the building with a doofy smile on your face. The rest are already inside--Wait, not everyone! A quick head count shows that Dirk and Jake are missing. Suspicious. You’re not sure if you should be worried about Jake’s future health or how much sperm they’re not going to bother cleaning up.

Now would be a good time to vow not to go to the bathroom until you get back to the manor. You do so.

You’re escorted to a booth by Mom and the family is divvied out across two seats. You’re sandwiched between Jade and Dave, Bro on Dave’s opposite side. Roxy, Kanaya, Rose, and Mom make up the other side; Mom across from Bro, Rose across from Dave, you staring at Roxy idly amusing herself by arranging and then rearranging free sugar packets they have on the table. It looks as though she’s trying to build a house of cards with them, but failing. You feel slightly sad for this witch’s futile plight. Tragically beautiful.

The waitress (who looks more Korean than Chinese to you but you’re not going to mention something like that) takes your orders for drinks before leaving. It’s sorta awkward, everyone else around you is talking to each other, having small and pleasant conversations. And you’re just sitting there like an asshole. The other fun fact is that your stomach was practically eating itself, god did it suck to not have eaten for weeks.

Finally the waitress comes around with your drinks and asks for your orders. Dave, being a true pig, orders two dishes, a whole bowl of soup and some wontons. You eye him suspiciously and he just shrugs. Dirk and Jake aren’t back by now, and you think they won’t be back until it’s time to go. You guess they were eating in a sense--and no, you’ll stop right there. Rose and Kanaya order light dishes, which surprised you they ordered anything at all, but whatever. Bro also orders a fuck ton of food, and you just wonder: where the hell do those demons pack it? Fucking magic, man. Jade orders a whole peking duck, and the werewolf stereotypes just keep packing on, you swear. Roxy just orders some more liquor; she was already pretty fucking hammered by that point. You and Mom surprisingly order the same dish, and Dave pokes fun at you for it. You fling one of your forks at his face, which he catches of course. That smug little bastard.

And of course those actions don’t go unnoticed, because after the server leaves, Jade is pelting Rose with Roxy’s sugar packet house. It becomes a total utensil and sugar packet war, unto Bro swears you all out, threatening to kill each and one of you very painfully. You all stop immediately, looking like guilty children.

About 20 minutes later, the food gets there and you all dig in. Ten minutes later Dave is already done with both dishes, and is finishing up his soup. You swear to god you had never seen anyone eat that fast, you had only finished the first few bites of your kung pow chicken. Eating ensues until Bro and Mom finish, going to the bar to gamble on some of the horse races their showing. You shake your head in amusement, oh adults and their odd ways.

Jake and Dirk slink back a little after Bro and Mom leave, and everyone just ends up staring at them like they grew another head. Dirk flips them off while Jake just hides his face in embarrassment. Dave whispers something in Dirk’s ear, which Dirk immediately stabs Dave’s hand with a knife. You flinch, but it doesn’t appear to affect Dave. Charming. Oh family, how they grew on you.

You get surprised that you thought of them as your family, but they really did feel like that, for how much you could actually remember.

Everything was super hazy, and bits and pieces were coming back, but not the whole thing.

Hours later, you finally have to leave because Bro got into a fight with another customer, which meant their ass was thoroughly kicked. Stepping outside, your head is suddenly plagued with an absolute splitting headache. “Ah...fuck!” You curse loudly, swaying to one side.

Dave is there in a flash, holding you close and making sure you’re alright. Shaking your head no, everything seemed too bright and loud, which makes you throw up. All over Dave, of course.

Everything was going black...black...black! And then, like a true gentleman, you fainted.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John faints and then there's a bunch of character interactions.

 

 

Chapter 8

 

You have now stopped being John, because John was busy fainting and acting like a pussy. And of course he had to puke on you, disgusting humans and their upchucking abilities. Sure, it worried you that John totally threw up on you and then fainted like a fair maiden (and you totally caught him, like the badass motherfucking knight you were). You wondered if it had anything to do with getting back his memories. You had a similar experience long ago, not that you exactly wanted to go into that backstory.

And so everyone else rushes home to help out John. Kanaya switched spots with John, just so he could go on a smoother ride. (Yours was sorta bumpy.)

The ride home was quiet, and you could feel your nonexistent heart racing, fearful that John wasn’t okay. All that work--Roxy and Mom’s spell, your little trip to Limbo, hell, even showing up at Dad’s place for what Dad himself would consider the stupid reason to end all stupid reasons--And it could possibly all be for absolutely nothing. You didn’t know how these supernatural-to-human spells worked! What if it was, like, for an hour? You’d have John Egbert, the mindless psychopathic hunk of kinda-animate rotting flesh, right back in the guest room. You’d be right back to where you started.

But this time, there’d be no airy soul, no mockery from Dad.

This time, there’d just be the mindless zombie that would have been your boyfriend.

You don’t bother nixing the last part of that statement because you wanted it to be true. Fuck, you wanted it to be true probably more then you valued whatever little shards of life you had left with you. You almost wish you could talk to someone around now, vent all your pent-up worries and anger and all those other feelings you’ve had bumping around in your skull ever since...Well, a certain incident that’s mostly boring and slightly depressing. But you don’t. You’ve got Kanaya. And you and Kanaya aren’t exactly on speaking terms. Not that you don’t like her, she’s fine enough. Doesn’t get in the way much. Keeps to herself and Rose. Shows up with a suit for you every four months or so. But it isn’t like she’s the one you immediately go to if you have issues.

Actually, you didn’t go to _anyone_ , but you were just stubborn like that.

You take a sideways glance at Kanaya. She isn’t really looking at you--She’s observing the outside surroundings through the window like they’re the best things on earth (and to a vampire who probably hasn’t seen half of this in the sunlight, it just might be)--But she’s clearly paying attention because just when you look, she shifts ever so slightly.

You look back to the road and she says something.

“It isn’t your fault, you know.”

There’s this long pause as your hands grip the wheel slightly tighter. ‘It’s not your fault’, what does that even mean? Not your fault John might be a zombie again? Well, no shit, Sherlock. The blame for that was all on Roxy and Mom for fucking up that spell. ‘It’s not your fault’, what could she even be talking about...?

She couldn’t know about...All those years back...

Could she?

You’re being paranoid. You vow to ask Kanaya about what she meant later. Right now, you have a hypothetical boyfriend to save.

 

~

 

It’s not a terribly long time before you end up at home. Walking into the manor, you can see that most everyone is just as nervous as you are. Of course, it’s more of a matter of who showed it. Dirk, for one, did not. He didn’t show any nervousness for John at all. Which is fitting, you suppose, considering how abrasive he was to John this whole time. Dirk could really be a dick sometimes. Rose has John’s body over her shoulder, and she slides him off onto the sofa, fluffing and adjusting some throw pillows to make sure he’s comfortable.

As though comfort will be a problem when he’s dead or back to a zombie again. Or both, maybe. Both would be the logical conclusion.

“Heh, sorry guys.” Roxy laughs, her voice interrupting the tranquility the parlor had. At some point she had retrieved one of those Mike’s Hard Lemonades, and she pauses to take a swig now. Great, and after she had made such an effort to go sober for the spell-casting. Back to square one, and clearly she knows it. “I guess I botched the magyks and stuffs! Whoopsie-daisy!” Another swig, then she looks right at you. “Sorry there, Davey.”

You glance away.

“Roxy, come now, obviously it’s not entirely your fault...” Jake smiles awkwardly, as though he’s desperately trying to lighten the mood. “After all, there were other variables, right? Mom’s magical, er, prowess, and then Dave’s ability to pick out the right soul from a bundle, no doubt a feat he had a chance of mixing up--”

“Oh, so it’s my fault.” You say bitterly. You’re glaring at him, which is a futile gesture since your sunglasses don’t allow him to see it.

The werewolf appears to get the message, though, and he desperately tries to backpedal. “No, no! I’m not saying it’s _entirely_ your fault, I’m just suggesting that, well, in the _scheme_ of things, it’s a large _possibility_ that--”

“Hey, Jake?” Jade says brightly, smiling wide as her eyes narrow. This is one of the few times you’ve seen Jade be threatening, and you’re surprised. She can do it well. “Maybe, and I’m just talking out loud here, maybe you should shut up.”

Everyone mutters various words of agreement. Jake huffs, crossing his arms and looking away, but doesn’t take this time to object.

“Besides, while we’re on the topic,” Rose goes on, feeling the need to make everything calm again, as per usual. “It’s nobody’s fault. Magic, in and of itself, is a risky gamble to be taking part in. After all, the working value of the enchantment only works when the corresponding variables are all in alignment. Yes, we could put blame upon the worker of the magic, though the...Shall I say, victim and any other spell-casting things--Being herbs, particular places, names, even, in the case of this, souls--Have to align themselves perfectly in order for it to all go as planned. Ergo, if it is anyone’s fault, it’s the fault of the details of the magic itself, and not of Dave and Roxy.”

There was a minor pause, as there often was after Rose went on a lecture. Roxy is the first to pop her lips. “So, what’cher sayin’ is,” She begins, pausing a bit as she tips the bottle semi-accusingly in Rose’s direction, “‘Cher sayin’ it’s all’a our faults because we all made the variables not go all lined-up! Gotcha’ sister! That makes sense.”

Rose furrows her eyebrows. “No, I’m saying that it’s nobody’s fault; rather, the fault of the magic itself.”

All this talk of who’s to blame for the complete and total wreckage of the spell is doing nothing to ease your concerns. And, of course, Mom and Bro are gone so there can’t be any final say in the matter. If anyone was going to agree on anything at this point, that phrase had to come out of Kanaya’s mouth, and Kanaya, from her nice and comfy spot on a velvet chair, does not look like she’s about to give a final verdict.

“So, just throwing this out here,” Dirk pipes in, smirking, “If zombie-boy comes back dead, do we get to kill him right here, or would Dave get all sentimental to his hunk of rotting flesh and we’d have to leave it alone?”

“No, of course we wouldn’t kill him right here.” Rose says sternly. “And ruin the good sofa? Mom would have our heads.”

“Of course.” You reply, your tone as dry and as acid-tipped as you can possibly manage. “The sofa is the issue here. What about me, huh? What about the fact that I literally went to Hell and back to go make this fucking dweeb normal again and now he’s just going to go back to a brain-dead corpse? No. Of course not. Just another day in the fucking amazing life of Dave Strider.” You’re beginning to ramble now, but hell if you care. “Let’s just make a sitcom out of it! Like _The Brady Bunch_ or some shit. _The Monster Bunch_! We’ll be famous all because of my fucking screw-ups.”

There’s another minor pause, as there often was after you went on a rant.Jade, of all people, is the first to smile at you. “Aw, come on, Dave! It was nothing, really, for you. Hell in a handbasket!”

“So this whole shit is headed for disaster. Tell me something I don’t know, Jade.”

Her smile falters. “That isn’t what I thought that meant at all! But--But anyway, even if John dies again, his soul’ll be back in wherever souls go, right? So, instead of a zombie or a human, we could have a ghost! I wouldn’t mind being haunted, if worst comes to worst.”

Despite her misuse of phrases, Jade’s cheerfulness did make you crack a halfhearted smirk.

“Besides,” She goes on, “A sitcom about our life would be more like _The Munsters_ , not _The Brady Bunch_!”

And your smirk is gone. Thanks, Jade. You glance away from here to the comatose body of John Egbert, stalling there, reminding you that you failed, that Roxy failed, that Mom failed, that the entire magic failed. You could kill him, if it meant moving beyond that failure.

But you won’t. You just don’t have the willpower. If Bro and Dirk knew this internal dialogue you were engaging in, they’d certainly slightly maim you. So you’re left staring at him, angry at the reminder of your shortcomings but concerned that he’ll never come back, wondering if this was hopeless but still grasping to the hope he was still there, praying to...Well, not God, since God wouldn’t give the son of Satan’s prayers a second glance, but some other divine force to make it so John would be alright.

...Wait, did his fingers just twitch?

Slowly, ever so slowly, you advance toward John. Everyone in the room looks at you, and you make a vague gesture to the boy on the sofa. They look over to him, and there’s a long, collective inhale. Either you imagined the movement, or John is really okay.

John groans, shifts onto his side, and then curls up in the fetal position with his nose almost touching the back of the sofa, as though he’s just taking a little nap.

You break down, grinning like a madman as you rush up to the sofa and shake John. “Hey. Hey, John, wakey wakey eggs and bakey!”

“Heh heh...Really, Dave, did you just say that?” He yawns, sitting up and pushing your hands away. “That was really lame, Dave.”

There’s a collective exhale, then everyone is gathering around John, all talking at once, so quickly that nobody can really make out what anybody is saying. He chuckles at them all. “Hey, hey, slow down! I’m okay.”

The voices settle down until Rose asks the question on everyone’s mind: “John, what happened back there?”

He chuckles again, rubbing the back of his neck. “W-well, I just got a really bad headache, that’s all. Everything just kinda...Swarmed in, y’know?”

You blink in disbelief. “You--You got your memories back?”

“Well, yeah, I guess!” He smiles, then pauses, as though remembering things right now. “A--A sister! I had a sister. And a dad and...And a whole life!” He laughs yet again, looking at everyone in the room. “And I never would’a remembered without you all! Thanks, everyone!”

Everyone’s talking at the same time again, asking questions, saying they’re welcome. Only, you’re not talking.

You’re just smiling. Because nobody failed.

Actually, far from it.

You, and everyone else, succeeded with flying colors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowee! Look who hasn't posted in forever! Well here we are a couple months later or so. We sorta both hit writers block, but heck it's all cool now. We got lots planned and regular updates are going to be a thing! So please comment and kudo and bookmark our fic! Also thanks for everything as well! See you around guys!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where John has to choose from a bunch of options that aren't particularly good.

Chapter 9

The next day, you switched back to being John Egbert.

Everyone had given you yesterday to rest, but you hardly slept a wink. You were too busy going over your new-found memories, the ones that your rotting zombie brain didn’t allow you to access. Your beloved sister, Jane, who baked the cakes with your dad. Your birthdays and the cool posters you got, all the movie stars you would fawn over, the friends you had and the bag lunches you’d eat.

The girl who was hanging with that shady-looking guy.

The girl you accidentally startled, causing her to leave in tense fright.

The shady-looking guy who did not look pleased that his girlfriend left.

The shady-looking guy who killed you.

Reflecting back, it really was funny, realizing you lived and owed a lot to your murderer. But he was nice, once you got to know him. Despite eating vital organs, murdering more people then you bothered counting, and sometimes becoming a scary-ass full demon, you liked the guy. This killer was the best friend an ex-zombie could ever ask for!

Wow, that was a sentence not a whole lot of people got to say.

In the morning you went downstairs for breakfast only to discover (and why you didn’t bother with learning this _earlier_ , you didn’t have a clue) that breakfast was practically nonexistent here. Really, the only ones who needed to consume anything were the werewolves and the witches, and Roxy was still asleep. And Jake was suspiciously absent. So that left Jade to show you what they had to eat for their first meal of the day.

“We’ve got lots of meat!” She declares brightly, smiling at the fridge’s insides. You’re less than impressed. It’s mostly steak and hamburger meat and some pork and chicken. Sure, you expected that in werewolves, but you sort of wish werewolves also enjoyed yogurt or something.

“Um...What about, like, bacon? Breakfast sausages?”

She frowns, shutting the fridge and then opening up the freezer. “Well...What about toaster strudel? Don’t tell Roxy you’re having her food, she gets real clingy about her strawberry toaster strudel.”

You decide you can risk a witch coming after you if it means not having to make a full chicken for fucking breakfast. You grab the frozen Pillsbury pastry and stick it in the toaster, rolling the icing between your hands to warm it up.

It’s when you’re carefully making designs on your two pieces of strudel that Rose sticks her head into the kitchen. “John? Come out, mother wishes to talk with us.”

Sighing, you pick up the plate and trudge into the parlor. Apparently you were the last to be informed of this--Even Roxy is here, still in her pajamas, her hair a mess. Hey, thanks guys. Tell the newbie last. Good system they had going here. You stand next to the velvet sofa, next to Dave, who looks up and smirks at you. “Who said you could steal Roxy’s food?”

“Who stole the whatzits?” Roxy asked, looking right at you and Dave. You hide the breakfast food behind your back and she looks away.

There’s a moment for the idle chatter to die down, and then all focus draws to Mom. She’s holding a coffee cup and stirring it idly before taking a swig of the drink. “Now,” She began smoothly, “As you’re all very well aware, I have a position on the Wizard’s Council, which enforces certain guidelines to be held among all families of the night. Therefor,” She takes another swig of her coffee, “Despite my position, we are going to need to make some revisions.”

“What?” Jade cocks her head. “But we’ve always been fine! There’s never been any declarations of war, and no avid reinforcements of popular monster stereotypes, no becoming the leads in B-rate monster flicks...And there’s no humans with us! Me and Jake, you and Roxy, Rose and Kanaya, Dave, Bro, and Dirk...” She paused, holding up nine fingers.

Something clicks with everyone.

They all look right at you.

You had begun eating the toaster strudel while Mom was talking, but now that everyone was looking, you set down the half-eating pastry and hide it behind your back again in case Roxy sees. “Uh...” You swallow the strudel. “So, this is about me then?”

Mom nods slowly. “You see, John, upon your restoration, we neglected a slight detail in the hustle to give you a better state of mind. In the restoration, you no longer were a monster. You became mortal.”

Your eyes shift around. Nobody has stopped looking at you. This was weird. “So, is that a problem? I’m not reinforcing any human stereotypes or something. I don’t even like B-rate monster flicks!”

“Section 15, chapter 4, subnote 6.” She recites. The rest of the family also chimes in with the rest: “ _A monster and a human are not to share the same abode under any long term and/or permanent circumstance._ ”

“Therefor,” Mom takes a very long swig of her coffee. All this talking must be making it go cold. “In order for you to continue residency here, you’re going to have to become one of us.”

You blink in surprise. “Uh, um, don’t I get some other options?”

“Sure.” Dave snickers. “You could be booted out and join your old human family, who all think you’re dead and buried, with memories of knowing us erased...”

“Or we could kill you!” Jade smiles.

These are not great options. You wish there was a fourth way out, since you’re not exactly sure if any of these monster lifestyles are quite...Enjoyable for your tastes. Memories are things you do want to keep, mostly because you just got them back. And _hell_ no, you weren’t dying a second time. You look at everyone, swallowing hard. “Can--Can I sleep on this? Let me decide?”

Mom nods. “Of course. In fact, tomorrow is the day you must choose, die, or be granted amnesia. I was just about to get to that.”

There’s a long pause, the kind of pause in a conversation where everything is weird and nobody has stopped looking at you and only now you realize Dirk, Jake, and Bro are missing. You take a big step back. And then another, and another, until you’ve walked backward into...

Into...

Into a _body_.

“Hey, kid. Goin’ someplace?”

You scream, dropping the plate and the half-eaten toaster strudel. It’s Bro, towering above you, smirking down at your terrified face. “Kid, you know to answer your elders when they ask ‘ya shit?”

“Ah...Yes. Yes, sir! I was just...” You pause, taking a look at the shards of nice china and the frosting and filling smeared on the wooden floor. You’d clean it up later. “I was, er, going to finish breakfast. But, haha, that’s meaningless no--” You stop mid-word looking up when you realize Bro isn’t there anymore. Confused, you look back and forth, sticking your head into the kitchen.

Something jabs you in the back. “Kid, you’re never gonna get me that way.”

You screech again, whipping around. There’s Bro again, chuckling. “Keep ‘em coming, I haven’t had a fucking pansy here in forever.”

Your heart rate drops as you exhale slowly. “Stop _doing_ that!”

He laughs again, then pauses and adjusts his shades. “Anyway. Heard you’ve gotta join us or hit the streets. What’cha plannin’ on?”

You swallow, keeping your eyes on him, just in case he wants to vanish again. “Um, I dunno...I wanna stay, I guess, you guys all seem...Nice!”

“Nice? That’s a fucking laugh.” He takes a sideways glance into the other room. “Yeah, everybody’s killed like, eight people, tops. Maybe not the witches, but come on. They get a free pass on the killing.” He looks at you again, and you wish you didn’t have to keep looking up at him, it made you nervous that he was just going to bend over and clunk your head. “But whatever floats your boat, kid.”

“Considering my alternatives, I don’t have much of a choice.” You admit, rubbing the back of your neck. You make the mistake of letting your eyes drift away, and when you look back, Bro’s gone again. He’s not a demon, he’s a fucking leprechaun. If only you could find his lucky charms, you’d kill for an actual decent breakfast. You sigh and walk back into the kitchen, finding a broom and dustpan and walking back to the mess you made.

“But, if I can just pitch SOMETHING to you--”

Another screech. You hold out the broom as a weapon and Dirk is there this time, laughing at you. “You’re such a pussy.”

You lower the broom and your head twitches around you, looking for any sign of Bro. There isn’t any. You exhale. “I--I just thought you were--” You pause, looking back and Dirk. Something registers. “Wearing clothes.”

He’s standing there in nothing more than boxer shorts and his shades, his arms crossed across his chest. “What, you’re suprised an incubus was having some fucking sex? I couldn’t be bothered to be dressed. So, you’re getting booted out, ‘eh?”

“Well...Not if I become one of you.”

“Yeah, I heard. As I was saying, if I could pitch something to you...” He pauses to smile wide. “You could join us Striders and become a minor demon.”

You pause, making another awkward glance around. “Um...I-I’m not sure I want to keep having sex with a guy or stealing hearts or whatever it is Bro does--”

“He eats your fear. Stop shivering, fucking wuss.”

Oh, like that made anything better. “It just doesn’t seem like my thing.”

“Come on now, minor demons don’t do that shit. It’s for the higher ups. You just drive people to suicide by reminding them of their failures and growing futility on this planet.”

You pause and look at him for a long while. His description of the demonistic position did not sound like one any rational person would take, aside from, say, serial killers. “Can...Can I just clean this toaster strudel up? Alone? Please?”

He nods. “Fine, fine. But, you know, you wanna take up the cool job--You come to me.” He chuckles, leaving the room, hopefully to put on a fucking shirt.

You sigh, kneeling down to sweep up the bits of plate and pastry. When everything is in the dustpan, you get up and trot off to the kitchen to toss this stuff into the trashcan; glad you don’t have to deal with demons that just came back from sex and demons that keep going away and coming back just to scare--

“Hey there John!”

You scream again and it’s a wonder your entire larynx didn’t just pack it’s things and leave. You manage to only drop the broom, not the dustpan and things within, and you bend over to get it. “Yeah, hey there, Jade.”

She smiles, leaning slightly to get a better view of you from your lowered state. “I just wanted to invite you to a big party!”

“A--A what?” You straighten up.

“A party! The one that’s gonna welcome you to our pack, silly!” She flounces over just to playfully punch your shoulder. “Oh, I just know you’re gonna let me give you lycanthropy! I mean, who wouldn’t want that? You can have all this energy and go out on nice nights and--”

“Experience painful transformations once a month before slaughtering a few sheep?”

“...There’s no sheep around here. Besides, it’s not so painful after a while! You really get used to it.”

You shuffle to the trashcan, Jade slowly tagging along. You almost feel bad to reject the offer, assuming she had this party planned from the start. She just seemed so _happy_ to give you a terrible curse you could only be free from if you were shot with a specific kind of bullet. “Sorry, Jade, but I don’t think I’m cut out for the whole...Slaughtering things. It’s not...You know, my kind of thing.”

You politely neglect the hypocrisy of saying this when you once killed a girl.

Her head dips a bit and she frowns. “Well...Okay, if you say so...But--But if you change your mind...”

You smile. “Yeah, I’ll come to you.”

She leaves and you put the broom and dustpan back. Okay, okay, nobody was going to scare you this time, you assure yourself. Bro is missing again and Jade didn’t mean to spook you and Dirk is probably taking a post-sex nap. You take a deep breath, count to ten, then let it out. You were fine. Feeling fine, you walk back into the parlor, intending to go back to your room to weigh your options.

“If you haven’t already been swayed...”

You manage not to scream this time, but you do some odd spaz-dance as you whip around and come into view of Kanaya and Rose. “Fuck, can I go a minute without someone scaring me!?”

“Apologies.” Rose says slowly before taking a stride closer to you. “I just wanted to present you with the fact that if you would choose to become a vampire, we would be completely accepting of you.”

“...Thanks.”

“All things considered, it would be the most beneficial option.” She goes on, “Of course, sunny mid-afternoons and garlic bread is now out of the question, but it’s made up for. Flight. Invulnerability. Speed. And all you’ll need is a victim to supply you with blood.”

Rose has a point there, but you’re noticing the disturbing trend that all these positions involve murdering at least one person. Again, you were being a hypocrite, but you really didn’t want to kill anyone unless you needed to. “Well...Uh, can I think about this? Everyone else is kinda forcing their views on me as well...”

“Of course.” She dips her head respectfully and makes a vague gesture toward the staircase. “Go on.”

You make your way up the stairs and into the guest bedroom, flopping backwards on the bed. Well, you were in a bind. You had a whole lot of options, sure, but that didn’t mean any of them were good. Dying? No. Memories wiped? No. Then you were supposed to be turned into a monster, but which one would have you mercilessly slaughter the least? None of these seemed really all that great, from your point of view. Slaughter, murder, survive from all that...

...Yet...

There was someone who hadn’t said anything about their variety of monster.

And now, considering it...Yeah. It seemed like the best. You didn’t have to kill people or sheep. You didn’t have to give up garlic bread or live in fear of silver.

Besides, you always did like magic.

 

~

 

The next morning, at the same time, everyone’s there. This time, even Dirk, Jake, and Bro showed up. Everyone’s looking at you again, waiting to hear what you have chosen to be for the rest of your life.

“Uh...Hey guys!” You smile awkwardly, looking at them all. Their stoic expressions don’t change. “Well, I made a choice! Believe me, it was hard and all, lots of pondering. But...I wanna be a wizard!”

“ _YES!_ ” Roxy thrust her arms into the air, grinning. “We haven’t had any a’ the wizards in forever! Trus’ me, you’re gonna love it!”

A smile slowly spreads on mom’s lips. “Alright, John. Roxy, take him into your room and infuse him with magic, if you would.”

“Yes ma’am!” She smiles right at you, getting up and grabbing your arm and pulling you all the way up to her spire room, as though you didn’t know where it was. It had gotten messier since you last saw it, but she doesn’t seem to mind, pushing papers around until she finds a small vial. “‘Ere you are! Bottoms up, John!”

You look at it slightly suspiciously. “It’s not alcohol, right?”

She laughs, rolling her eyes. “Puh-leeze, have some faith in me!”

Not as though you have a choice. You uncap it and, closing your eyes, tilt your head back and swallow the mixture.

 

~

 

It took a few day’s worth of training and withstanding Roxy’s interesting explaining methods (sometimes you just didn’t know what she was saying, with her tendency to shorten a few words), but you were officially ready to call yourself a rank 1.5 wizard. Of course, this meant nothing. There was a lot of training ahead and you just only knew the basics. But for now, that would be okay.

After all, even the basics were still magic, and who didn’t like magic? And you sorta had an eternity to master it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, a day late on our whole keeping up to schedule thing, but hell it was only by a day! Anyways, this is probably the longest chapter and it's full of nothing really important! Though it is important because family interaction and toaster strudels. Who are we kidding it's not that important, but we're getting to the good stuff I swear! Next chapter is going to introduce new characters and the family going to the beach. BEACHES ARE FUN! Keep kudosing and bookmarking and please do leave comments! Like that's the stuff we're really looking for here folks. We wanna know how good this is or not. So yeah, 'til next time my dears!  
> -JaysNarnia


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In where John and the family go to the beach to have fun.

Chapter 10

 

Your name is John Egbert--wait, why are you re-introducing yourself? You’re pretty sure you never stopped being yourself! Okay, time to _not_ argue with yourself here. Basically you’re now a wizard. Which sounds really cool, but actually turns out it isn’t as cool as you would have thought. All the hype about doing magic was pretty much a lie, you think, because all these months leading up to summer (where you are currently now) was boring as hell.

Basically you’ve been doing dumb school work again. Or at least it felt like that. Homework on how certain herbs did what, and how you shouldn’t use your magic for bad--unless you wanted to go to wizard prison. You now feel like you’re in a book that was made for an alternate universe where everyone was in love with the idea of wizarding schools. Though you guess that’s a dumb idea and you’re not exactly sure why you even had it in the first place! Focus John, you’re telling about how wizard training is boring! Okay, good. Now you’re on track.

All in all, you’re bored with being a wizard. You guess some things are pretty interesting though. You’ve grown to really enjoy living with the hodgepodge that is your family. You’ve grown really close with Jade, Rose, and especially Dave. It’s like you’ve known them forever! Everyone else you’ve grown to like and accept too. Except Dirk, because Dirk is an asshole.

You get interrupted from your ongoing monologue about feelings (which is a good thing because some things could have gotten embarrassing!) when Mom Lalonde bursts into the living room where you’re currently watching _Tom and Jerry_ with Dave and Jade.

“So, I wanna pitch something to you guys.” She says, looking at you and the other two. None of you are paying attention, clearly too mesmerised by the futile plights of this poor, poor cat. She rolls her eyes, steals the remote control, and turns off the TV.

There’s lots of complaining from everyone until she snaps at you all to shut up. You all comply because you’re pretty sure Mom could explode your heads and make it look like an accident. “As I was _saying_ , I wanted to pitch something.”

“No.” Dave immediately says. “If this is about you going to see another midnight movie of _Rocky Horror_ , I swear to dad that I will literally pack my things and leave.”

“But I’ve never seen _Rocky Horror_!” Jade whines.

“Well boo fucking hoo. It’s not even that good. I don’t want to see Tim Curry prancing around with his hunky dumb men and trying to sex up everyone.”

You cock an eyebrow. “...I’m pretty sure _Rocky Horror_ isn’t about Tim Curry trying to fuck everyone.”

“Actually, yes, Egbert. It is. I’m pretty fucking sure it is.”

“ _Would you all shut up I’m trying to pitch an idea here_.” Mom growls, and you swear to god for a split second she was considering murdering you all. It only takes a moment to regain her composure, though. “Ahem. This time it is not about watching Rocky Horror at obscenely early hours. I wanted to have a nice family trip.”

There’s suddenly loud clattering and thumping sounds. You blink, clearly startled by the ruckus, and look to the source of the sound. It’s the staircase--Or rather, who’s on it. Well, it isn’t just one person, like the phrase ‘who’s on it’ may imply. It’s _everybody_. Literally everyone that wasn’t in the living room, from Rose to Kanaya to Bro to Roxy to Dirk to Jake to Roxy’s cat, was standing there, looking right at Mom.

“A _trip!?_ ” Everyone but you and Mom and the cat says.

“We haven’t been anywhere since--Well, since Bro got arrested a second time!” Jake said, smiling eagerly.

Bro nods, as though reflecting. “Heh, yeah, that was fun.”

“‘Ey, can we go somewhere that’s actually cool?” Roxy smiles, making vague gestures with her hands. “Like an amusement park ‘er somethin’. The Knotts Berry Farm ‘er the Wiscansin Dells ‘er--Whadabout Disney World? Oh my god I’d so want to go to Disney and do all the fun shit there.”

Mom sighs, shaking her head, though she’s smirking. Clearly her family is amusing her. “Regrettably, our funding is low and we certainly wouldn’t have enough to pay for plane tickets for all of us.”

Roxy sighs loudly and tries to dramatically fall into the person behind her; in this case being Dirk. He tilts out of the way and she falls onto Jake instead. “Oh, heya there, English~”

Jake blinks.

“Oh my god, are those hickeys? _Oh my god_ , you two were sexin’ it up again!? You guys are crazy; but I guess it’s all sweet, since Dirk’s all demon and probably eats your sperm instead of food an’ so I guess it’s fine. D’you guys have, like, breakfast, lunch, and dinner sex? Oh my god that’s so weird you two!”

Jake’s face turns an almost comical shade of scarlet. Roxy continues to talk, and Dirk begins laughing pretty hard at Roxy’s banter.

Mom lowers her eyelids, quite unamused by this turn of events. “ _I was going to get to the part about where we were going so please. Shut. Your. TRAPS_.”

You flinch, as does the rest of the family quite suddenly. She could go full-on evil witch mode at any moment. Jake weakly pushes Roxy back into a standing position and repositions the laughing Dirk right in front of him.

Mom coughs into her hand, her previous serious demeanor returning. “Now,” She smooths out her blouse, apparently as an idle gesture to get all of this negative energy out of her system, “As we don’t have a whole lot of money due to some, ahem, reckless spending--I won’t say who--” She pauses and shoots a scathing glare at Dave.

“What? You know I needed a new DJ set.”

“I’m talking about the _obscene_ amounts of apple juice.”

“Oh, yeah, I need that shit too. Hearts, y’know, makes a dude thirsty.”

You punch Dave in the arm so he won’t upset Mom again and she won’t explode his head.

“...We’re going to have to bother with an, er, less expensive trip. Ergo,” She clasps her hands in front of her. “How does everyone feel about the beach?”

There’s various sayings of approval. Roxy goes on another tangent about all these swimsuits she’d never worn but now she can; Dirk, Jake, Jade and Dave have apparently all decided on a volleyball match; Rose and Kanaya are discussing what they could read that they would be okay with getting sandy and possibly wet.

Mom smiles, doing a slight gesture to quiet everyone down. Surprisingly, it works. “Now, everyone, go get everything you’re going to need for this trip. Swimsuits, cover-ups, towels, and various more species-specific things. Pack all your things in your respective cars, and we’ll all leave together. Understood?”

“Understood!” Everyone but Roxy’s cat says because Roxy’s cat cannot speak.

Everyone scampers off their own separate ways. This leaves you alone in the parlor, glancing back and forth and slowly going off to your bedroom. Did you even own a swimsuit? Well, you’re sure you did, before you died then came back to life then went slightly insane then was revived fully. But you don’t think a swimsuit was part of the ensemble of alternate clothing that was given to you. You begin ransacking your drawers and eventually stumble upon a pair of swim trunks; off-white with a faded repeated pattern of that little anime slimer that was on your standard shirt. Oh, phew. You almost had to ask Dave for a swimsuit there, and you didn’t want to share something his dick had been in.

You put the swim trunks on and just keep your basic shirt on as well, making you look like some crazy slime-ghost-thing fanatic. Which you might be, but you’re sure it’s only you getting this message.

You walk out of your room and go to the linen cabinet kept in the hallway. Apparently ransacking drawers takes a while, because only Dirk is lingering behind, getting his towel; a beach ball under an arm. You walk up next to him to get a spare towel and he snickers at you. “Is that the only character you can wear? You look like a fucking slime-ghost-thing fanatic.”

Figures.

You don’t humor him with a reply and snatch up a basic blue-with-possibly-stereotypical Hawaiian prints towel, flinging it over your shoulder and hopping down the stairs, out the door, and to the cars.

Dave waves to you, showing you that, as you suspected, you’d be carpooling with him. You go over and hop in the dilapidated truck. He gets in the driver seat, and after the rest of the family in their varied tastes in automobiles leaves, you two follow right behind.

“Sooo...I take it you guys don’t get out a lot?” You ask, trying to make light conversation.

“John, three of us are fucking demons, two burn in the light, and two are hairier than shag carpets at least once a month. _No_ , we don’t get out a whole fucking lot. B’sides Mom, but y’know, she’ll all special with that wizard council bullshit. She probably goes on a fuckton of company trips and just ‘forgets’ to tell the rest of us.” He seems particularly bitter about this possibility. “And she tries to make it up by buying doughnuts. I don’t want your fucking doughnuts, Mom. Nobody wants your fucking doughnuts. They’re all for her and she makes it seem like she’s doing it to make up for those fucking company trips. That bitch.”

You wisely decide to drop the subject before Dave can continue about company trips and doughnuts.

Apparently this beach isn’t terribly far from the Lalonde / Strider / Harley / English / Maryam Mansion (you aren’t sure who owns it and it could be anyone as far as you know) and you and the rest of the cars pull up in a nearby parking lot. As you exit the car, it looks like a nice enough beach. There’s water and sand. Some intricate sandcastles from probably the child version of Frank Lloyd Wright. A pier. Not too many overweight sweaty men. All things considered, the beach could have been worse.

Roxy, of course, is the first to depart from the family and rush off towards the water, already throwing off that shirt with the pink cat print she decided was a perfect cover-up and tossing the shirt and her also pink towel into the sand. Everyone else follows at a slower and a lot less enthusiastic pace. You’re in the middle, behind Dirk and Jake who are trying to bump the beach ball to one another while walking (and not doing great at it), and Mom and Bro who are idly chatting about nothing in particular. Upon closer inspection, Bro is wearing an awkwardly tight speedo. You wish you didn’t inspect so closely. Some things you just can’t unsee.

You all trot over to where Roxy had beaned her stuff and deem that the spot you’d all be at. Rose and Kanaya pitch up their lacy parasols and lounge on their towels, watching everyone else have fun. Dirk, Dave, and Jake are saddened to find out there’s no volleyball net, but then Jade goes “Yoink!” and steals the beach ball right from Dirk, jumping into the waves and beginning a spirited game of keep-away. You laugh and join the shenanigans as well, Roxy coming into your game sometime in the middle. But she fights dirty. You swear, if something is impeding her from this beach ball, she will fucking drown it. She’s managed to dunk everyone under at least twice, and you’re pretty sure that’s against the standard rules of keep-away. If there were standard rules of keep-away.

It’s when you’re going back to your towel to get all this fucking water out of your eyes (thanks a million, Roxy) that you notice someone.

Someone...Familiar?

No, that couldn’t be...You shake it off as a mirage from all the water in your eyes and your lack of glasses. It’s probably a bush. You dry off your face and stick your glasses back on.

That’s not a bush.

That’s not a bush _at all_.

You very slowly cock an eyebrow as the not-bush looks over his shoulder. He beckons, and a girl comes up next to him. Now both the man and the girl are looking right at you, in confusion, disbelief, maybe a bit of wonder.

The man and the girl approach you. And then the man says something.

“Son?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa we're updating again??? That's not possible! Wow! But really, if you put to extremely lazy people together to write a monsterstuck au, you're pretty much expected not to get regular updates. But honestly, we're pretty sorry we haven't updated earlier and more on time! Which we swear we'll do next time. But anyways, we left you guys with a cliffhanger, so yay!! Now the story is actually moving on, and there's going to be more action! So, see you all til we put another chapter up! Hopefully it will be soon!  
> Also don't forget to comment! We love comments on how the fic is reading and constructive criticism! Also complements are nice.  
> The kudos and bookmarks are also much appreciated too!  
> -JaysNarnia


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dad is kind of a dick. And John cries, a lot.

Chapter 11

 

You feel faint as you stare at your father. Honestly, this wasn’t how you expected to meet him after your death. You actually forgot about your past life, absorbed in your current affairs. You look to him, then to Jane, your older sister. She looks more distant from the last time you saw her. Hell, it was almost five months since you last laughed with her! You feel your stomach drop as she holds her hand to her face, a worried and shocked look displayed upon it. Dad reaches out to you, and you don’t move away as he touches your cheek. You can’t seem to look him in the face; too worried to see what the hell he was thinking.

In the distance you hear someone shouting your name. Dad pulls his hand away, and you look back at him. You can barely make out your name on his lips as someone is running toward you. Dave is soon by your side, and he pauses to look at the almost catastrophic scene.

“Who is this?” Dad asks, and you then look over to Dave, wondering what the hell you could say to your Dad about _him_. “Oh yeah, you know he’s the demon who killed me then practically saved my sorry ass! Also I’m living with his supernatural family and it’s basically like _The Munsters_ without the sixties comedic part.” Yes, that’d go over just _swimmingly_.

“Oh, I’m a friend of John’s, we took him in after we found him wandering the streets.” Dave pipes in, which you wished he hadn’t because that may or may not have been a good thing to say.

“But John’s grave was found dug up--The doctor had declared him dead! He had a large hole in his chest when the police found him!” Dad is practically shouting now, clearly outraged why you were alive. You couldn’t blame him. “It’s almost as witchcra--” He then stops abruptly, and looks almost shocked. Jane freezes too beside him. You see Dave tense, but only slightly. Something wasn’t right.

It’s only when Dad pulls out this device from his bag that almost laughably looked like the PKE meter from _Ghostbusters_. Dave takes a step back, gasping, and tensing even more so. Dad looks up as it makes a very loud beeping noise as he points it at you and Dave. Jane pales even more so.

“It can’t be…” Dad says, in a slight trembling voice. You don’t understand what was happening, but it was probably nothing good. He then turns to Dave, his face masked with anger and fury. “How could you do this to him? He’s only a boy!”

“Dad, what’s going on?” You ask nervously. He turns to you, furious.

“How could you let him do this to you John? How are you this _dumb_ to let yourself get turned? I thought I taught you all there was to know about self defense! What horrible monster are you now?”

You’re gulping back tears, so confused how he knew and why he was so angry. Apparently Dad’s shouting drew some of the family in; Jade and Jake were now standing protectively around you, and Dave was now almost in front of you entirely. The thing in Dad’s hand is sounding berzerk at the increasing amount of your family nearing closer. He drops it almost disgustedly and reaches again in his bag. Jade and Jake growl, and you can hear Rose and Kanaya snarl behind you. Dad pulls out a 45 magnum Smith and Wesson gun, and you gulp loudly.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing Mister Egbert?” Dave says coolly and calmly, though you can see his jaw and fists clenched, and you know he’s not at all calm. Jane draws a 38 caliber pistol and points it at you, and you can’t believe it.

“You’re in on this too, Jane?” you almost plead, and she shakes her head.

“John, you’re a monster, it’s what we have to do.”

Mom then barges in, already yelling. “What the hell is going on here? Why are you pointing guns at my family? This has to be a huge mistake!” She’s now glaring at Dad, giving him the best death stare she could manage.

“It’s my job, ma’am.” The way he says ‘ma’am’ is how one would spit an insult at a trembling victim if the person in question was a dramatic supervillain, and more growling and defense positions are put into play. “I’m supposed to kill off the scum of the earth, starting with him.” He points the gun straight at you, and you go cold.

“B-but Dad! I’m your son!” you squeak out, almost at the verge of tears because you can’t believe your Dad was about to _kill_ you!

“You’re no son of mine! _My_ son was killed five months ago. I would have been proud of him.” He cocks the gun and you squeeze your eyes shut, choking back a sob. “I’m not proud of you... _So you’re not my son_.”

A bang sounds.

 

 

~

 

What happens next is disorienting. You honestly don’t exactly know what happened other than being pushed forcefully aside; you could say even tackled to the ground. Looking up from the near blackout moment you can see a large demonic being standing there, in front of you. You can only tell who it is because you can see the bows of a pair of glasses hooking behind pointed ears and the rounded side where they connect with the frame. Dad gasps loudly and Bro, Jade, Jake, and Dirk pounce. Bro, Jake and Dirk take on Dad, wrestling him to the ground. You almost want to yell out for them not to hurt your Dad, but you pause because he _had_ tried to kill you. Jade takes on Jane, and Roxy then comes in to help her with the capturing. Dave falls to the ground, becoming normal again; he’s bleeding where the bullet had hit, and grossly he pulls it out, wincing. Mom comes to him, pulling out her wand and mumbling a healing spell over him.

You end up sitting there in shock, until the shouts become mere growls and soft curses. Dave then crawls over to you, and hugs you close. Usually you wouldn’t let him touch you like this (and you’re pretty sure he wouldn’t normally do this) but you let him anyway. Then the inexplicable urge to cry really hard over what just happened washes over you, and you do. You end up sobbing into Dave’s shirt, as he hugs you tighter. Thankfully no one makes snarky comments as you pull away and wipe your eyes on your sleeve and snort all the gross boogers up back into your nose.

It was unusually quiet for two people who just got captured by the _freaks_ who they hunt down for a living, but as you look over you can see them knocked out. You make a concerned noise, but Mom shushes you, and says it was just a mere knockout spell. You’re then helped up off the ground, still quite shaky at the experience of your Dad almost _killing you_. Dave held your hand as you move on toward the cars; gripping harder as you think about what just happened. This family beach vacation was over, and not even Roxy made a stink over that. Dad and Jane are put into the back of the hearse Rose and Kanaya owned, and it makes you uneasy of how dead they looked.

The car ride home was silent; Dave hadn’t even bothered to turn on any music, so it was only your own thoughts to keep you company. Sadly, only what your father had said to you kept playing over and over in your mind, and you bite back another wave of tears. Dave made sounds like he was about to say something, but nothing ever comes. The coolkid, who was given the gift of gab, was now struck silent at the worst possible time.

What felt like a million years later, you finally end up home, but now it feels like a foreign old looking mansion. You crave your old room, filled with your favorite movie posters. You wish you could look at the beautiful Liv Tyler poster you smooched so much in your teen years. You wished Nic Cage’s gaunt face (as Dave would say) would look over you. Back then life was full of scraped knees and good guys kicking bad guys asses! None of this dramatic bullshit. You suddenly feel trapped in the small pickup truck’s cabin, and when Dave stops the car, it’s almost too much to stay in it any longer.

You burst out of there and run into the house and into your room. You break down there, hearing the others come much more slowly into the home. You then hear footsteps up the stairs, heavy and creaking. Voices of Mom, Rose and Dave can be heard. Peaking out of your room, you see a huge key ring taken out of Mom’s pocket. Rose is carrying Jane with ease, and Dave has your Dad on his back. They stop in front of the attic; the only off limits place in the house other than Bro’s and Mom’s rooms. Your eyes widen as Mom inserts the keys into the lock. The door creaks open, and she Rose and Dave enter with Dad and Jane. You exit your room as you creep up to the entryway of the attic.

There were many things buzzing in your mind, but one was screaming at you the loudest. Whatever was in there was _definitely_ dangerous, so what exactly were they going to do to Dad and Jane?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, we're updating again! School has been busy lately, and we were kind of in a writing slump. But we totally got into the writing zone and we have chapter 11 put out! This is kind of where shit goes down and heavier plot twists are used. So, hopefully we'll actually update in less than like 4 months and update sort of regularly. That would be nice, huh. But anyways, please comment, kudos, and bookmark! Also thank you for the love and attention that you have given to this fic, we can't believe it got as popular as it did!
> 
> -JaysNarnia


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which dark hallways are entered and some romance occurs?

Chapter12

 

The hallway was dark, maybe not as dark as it was being buried underground, but _definitely_ darker than the underside of a cow’s belly. You’re still pretty sure that’s a phrase, maybe. Tentatively, you step forward into the dark and very long hallway. It seems to absorb light as it goes on, and yeah, you’re _totally_ not feeling the creepy hallway vibes. You turn on your heel and start walking back to your room, until you re-realize that you can’t run away from this. Mom, Dave, and Rose ventured into the attic hallway with your dad and sister. You had to figure what was going on!

Turning around with some new-found confidence, you walk hotly back to the entrance to the attic. Gulping, you mutter a light spell, a little white flame appearing in the middle of your upturned palm. It gives you enough light to see a few feet ahead of you. God, this feels like the start of some Indie horror game. You’re expecting a jump scare right about now, like a badly modeled monster or a funky looking skeleton to pop out. You almost psych yourself out again, but no, you have to do this!

Gulping you step forward again, mustering all the courage you had to do this simple task. You walk into the dark abyss--You mean attic. The flame still flickers on your palm as you creep forward, hearing hushed voices in the distance.

There must be some enchantments on this whole ‘attic’ thing, because you clearly have been walking for ten minutes at least, and you’re not making much ground it seems. The voices, though, continually get louder, and soon you can see a orangish yellow light in the shape of a doorway in the distance. Relieved, you walk faster, almost into a half run. You want to get out of this ominous hallway!

“John, is that you?” Rose’s voice sounds from ahead.

“Yeah, it’s me!” You call, now breaking out into a run. Finally you burst into the room, slightly panting from all the hustle and bustle you just did. Dave cocks an eyebrow at you and smirks.

“Didn't know you were so out of shape dude, looks like we’ll have to get you on a treadmill or somethin’.” He says snarkily, and you shoot him an unamused look.

“Ahem, as much as we already think that was a dumb excuse to see John hot and sweaty David, we were talking about more pressing matters. And John is in better shape than someone who eats Doritos and watches dumb comedy flicks.” Rose retorts, a hidden smile on her face.

Dave sputters and reddens, clearly not admitting that he wouldn't _not_ like to see you hot and sweaty. He retorts with a shaky “Well, _Wedding Crashers_ was a great movie, Rose, so you can just shut the fuck up.” You suddenly feel very warm, and oh, did someone turn the heat up in here, or is it you? You don’t need an answer to that question, because you obviously know the answer. Also you can’t argue about the whole ‘ _Wedding Crashers_ rocks’, because you do think it’s pretty funny.

“Anyways, John, we were just talking about the arrangements of your father and sister. As you can see this used to be, well, a holding cell of sorts.” Mom interrupts your blush fest, population two, and you realize you didn't actually take in the ‘forbidden’ attic that now you were in.

It wasn't a very large room, and it had a large cage like holding cell thing. Sort of like a jail. There were two cot-beds placed in the cell, and what looked like some rusty hand cuff chains. You gulp. Jane and Dad are rested against one of the walls, still passed out due to the spell Mom put on them. Other than that, there wasn't really much in the room.

“So you’re going to put them in a cell for like the rest of eternity?” You say harshly. You may have almost died due to Dad and sister, but they were still family, goddamn it!

Mom shakes her head and smiles lightly. “No, we’re not going to do that. This room used to be where we held hunters. It also used to be a torture room much earlier than that. We've, er, _toned_ down our ways since then, but we are going to hold them in there for a while.” She replies calmly. You try to protest, but Rose cuts in before you have the chance to.

“John, even though they are your family, they are still very dangerous to us. They almost killed you, and they injured Dave.” In light of this, Dave holds his arm lamely and whimpers dramatically. The fucker got shot in the _chest_ , not the arm. What a baby. Rose rolls her eyes and continues. “The fact that we didn't kill them onsite is quite astounding. Especially with Jade and Jake out there. We usually have _no_ tolerance for hunters, and they were a small exception to that rule.” Your mouth goes dry on account that your family would have been dead if you weren't there.

“I hope you understand why we have to do that.” Mom says softly, touching your shoulder. You flinch and move away from her touch. She looks hurt for a moment, and clasps her hands in front of her. “It’s been a hard day, I know that. But we need to do this, trust me. They won’t be hurt, and will be fed regularly. We just need to question and hold them here until they promise they will not hurt my family. I do _not_ tolerate anyone who lays a finger on my family, John. And that includes you. And what I say is law around here, so you must accept this fact.” Her tone becomes authoritative and cool, and you nod slowly, understanding you don’t have a say in this matter, no matter if you were related to them or not.

“I’m going to go, I guess. I’m not needed here anyways.” You say in an almost hurt voice. You were probably being whiney about this, but the whole thing rubbed you the wrong way.

Dave chimed in with a “Yeah, not saying that this isn’t exciting, but it’s not. Just beep me when things actually go down.” He walks next to you, humming the _Kim Possible_ theme song, and you kind of want to burst out laughing or punch him in the shoulder. You do the latter, and he socks you back. You grin widely, forgetting the troubling matters at hand in a flash, and yeah, you totally think you have a crush on your demonic best bro.

 

~

 

You took a nap after the whole revelation about sorta liking Dave as more than a friend, because a) the whole beach encounter took it emotionally out of you, and b) that whole revelation took it out of you. Naps were probably the best way to forget about your troubles for a while, and who could argue about blissful dreamless sleep? You wake up groggy and confused because your room is dark. You probably woke up due to the incessant grumbling of your stomach, and realized you haven’t eaten in a while. Glancing at the clock, you see that it’s nine PM. Crap, time flies by when you take an emotionally charging nap. Getting up, you stretch and pad downstairs.

“The zombie lives.” Dirk says as emotionlessly as ever. Jake is currently laying on Dirk’s lap, who is sprawled out on the large velvet couch. You shoot him a glare as you sit down on one of the two armchairs.

“Well, I’m sure you never had to deal with any family turmoil before, but it’s kind of draining.” You reply coldly back. “And I’m kind of alive and not a zombie, so, uh, there.”

He snorts at your admittedly lame comeback, and shakes his head. “You were one, so, uh, there.”

Roxy groans loudly from middle of the floor. Apparently she was laying down there watching TV. “Guys, ya’ don’t need to act like a bunch a’ goddamn babies. So stop fuckin’ actin’ like ‘em and grow a pair.” She growls. “I’m tryin’ to fuckin’ watch _Teen Wolf_ here!”

Jake snickers at this, and you find it amusing too. Why would she need to watch a show about teenage werewolves when she lived with two? Then a guy took off his shirt and you realized why it was totally important to watch _Teen Wolf_.

The rest of the evening is pretty low key. You finally got some food from the kitchen-- Mind you, it wasn’t great food, just a ham Hot Pocket--And now were currently watching _Kung Fu Panda 2_. It arguably was as good as the first, and the whole Tigress and Po thing was pretty cute. You moved onto the floor and were currently resting your head on Dave’s shoulder, with Roxy’s head in your lap. Bro had taken your armchair, while Rose sat in the other one knitting. Dirk was still sprawled out on the couch, mindlessly stroking Jake’s head, who was sleeping pretty soundly on his lap. The sound of faint snoring and Jack Black’s voice was calming almost, and you felt pretty at ease. Well, as at ease as one could in this predicament. The only person missing was Mom, but you’re pretty sure she’s upstairs checking on Dad and Jane. You find your eyes grow heavy, comfortable with the spot you're in.

 

~

 

Next thing you know you’re floating up the stairs. Wait, _what_? You let out a squeal, startling the person who was apparently carrying you. Oh good, you weren't just randomly floating. You look up and see Dave is holding you. He’s now stopped, and has cocked an eyebrow at the squeal you just made.

“Sorry.” You feel the need to apologize “It was kind of unnerving to find myself being carried.”

He snorts. “Dude, you passed out during the middle of the movie, practically drenching my shoulder in drool! Not that it wasn’t endearing…” He trails off, and continues to carry you upstairs. The very warm feeling you had earlier came back, and you’re pretty sure home global warming was a thing now. You might have to phone the president about this.

The rest of the way up is silent, other than Dave’s footsteps and you both breathing. Finally he arrives at your bedroom, still carrying you. You had offered to walk the rest of the way, but he refused. Opening the door with a swift kick, he enters the room and sets you down on the bed. He looks at you for a second longer, and it seems like he wants to say something. He furrows his eyebrows, the only way you can see he’s frustrated due to his covered eyes. You quickly take off his shades for whatever reason, and he doesn't move a muscle to try and stop you. You’re seeing his eyes for the second time. They’re still a piercing red like the last time you saw them, and if they were described by a sappy romance novel writer, they’d probably be compared to a gem and called orbs or possibly fiery pools. You almost laugh out loud at that last one.

But he stares at you, and you stare back at him, still surprised at your forwardness. Quickly, you kiss him chastely on the cheek and then push him out of the room, slamming the door as soon as he’s outside.

You fall down weakly, due to the jelly like feeling your legs had and your heart is hammering away in your chest. _Did you really just do that_? Yes, yes you did.

Shakily standing up, you go to your bed, and flop down, exhausted. It was midnight, and you needed sleep.

What a crazy day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, we updated twice in a day? We're getting crazy here! But anyways, finally updated! It took less than a month, happily, which will probably be the time frame of when new parts come out. But no promises. Anyways, we left you on a cliffhanger, sort of, with the whole kiss on the cheek! It seems things are actually happening between John and Dave.  
> Hahahaha, yeah, good luck with that boys, we got some few tricks up our sleeves on this one. This is kind of a slow chapter, but I promise it's going to start getting more heavy and adventurey. There's a lot of characters and ships we haven't included, so get ready for this! Anyways, please kudos, comment, (Please, we love reviews and constructive criticism of our works. And obviously compliments.) or bookmark! See you till next time!
> 
> -JaysNarnia


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they go to Applebees and we learn about Dave.

Chapter 13

You wake up from a deep sleep. Wow, kinda sounds like you got hypnotized or something! Anyways, yeah, waking up from that really needed night sleep felt pretty great. It had been a long time since you’ve felt this--Rejuvenated! Huh, that sounded like something an old person would say. This morning was full of revelations, wasn’t it. Getting up to stretch, the weight of yesterday’s events hits you like a bomb. Shit, that actually happened, didn’t it? You put on a fresh shirt nevertheless, still somewhat ready to take on the day. Well, with less Dave.

It’s not that you didn’t like him, it’s that you--Well, acted irrationally. Anyways, you needed to talk to Dad and Jane because family was more important. Well, blood family was. Deciding that you should probably put some new boxers and pants on as well (Dad had always pressed that you dress your very best!), you just give in and make the executive decision on hopping in the shower to get fully clean. You did kind of smell like the ocean anyway.

Grabbing some new clothes to change into and a towel from the linen cabinet in the hallway, you walk to the upstairs bathroom, since you were upstairs anyway. Much to your disdain, you can hear Jake’s bad muffled singing voice coming from behind the door, which meant he was in the shower. You almost wanted to get a video recorder and break into the bathroom to record the amazing performance of ‘Whistle’ Jake was doing now. “Can ‘ya blow my whistle baby, whistle baby, let me know...Girl, I’m gonna show you how to do it and we’ll start real slow…” This was a surreal experience. You wonder if this is how the wolfman serenaded the incubus. You decide against actually bursting in the room because you didn’t exactly want to see Jake naked. And you’re pretty sure he might wolf out and that was an experience you didn’t want to have.

Sighing, you shuffle downstairs and go to the bathroom down there. The sight of bloody murder on the shower curtains still kind of creeped the hell out of you. Then again, you live with a bunch of murdering assholes, not that you didn't _love_ them, because you do, but seriously? How could Kanaya stand for this tacky shower curtain? You could see Dave endorsing it, and maybe Bro, but how did the respectable women of this household stand for this?

Realizing you had been staring at a shower curtain for ten minutes makes you shift into ‘getting clothes off’ mode to get ready for this goddamn shower. You finally take the goddamn shower (with less singing--Ok well you did hum a little, but it wasn’t ‘Whistle’, and you pride yourself on that fact) and get out. Dressing quickly into some casual clothes you get out of murder junction and walk into the living room.

There’s no one in there unless Frigglish was counted (you felt like that little guy should be counted), so you head upstairs. You were pretty hesitant on going back into the hallway of doom, and even more hesitant on seeing Dad and Jane. Even if they were family--Well, it was just hard to see them trapped up there. But you do it anyways. You weren’t the bravest guy in the world, but for your family’s sake you would be!

Again the hallway was dark, so you muttered the same light spell, and you continued down the hallway. The same orangish yellow light shone out from the room, and you enter it slowly. Rose is sitting in her chair knitting alone, and Dad and Jane are sitting quietly in the cell. Everyone looks at you as you enter.

“John! Oh, John, you’re here!” Jane calls out from the cell, and your stomach tightens and you look at Rose. She sighs and puts down her knitting. The artificial light makes her look dangerous, and it makes you realize she is a predator. You gulp.

“Look, as Mother said, we’re going to keep them in here for a while. As much as we don’t like it--Well, it has to be done John.” She pauses and you just stare at her. Pursing her lips, she continues, “I know it’s hard John, but we don’t have many options. I know they are family, and they have been spared, but they need to prove themselves--That they won’t hurt us. And there’s not really much else to say on the matter.”

You’re quiet for a bit, then nod. It’s not like anything else _could_ be done. “Can I at least talk to them?” Rose looks at you for a while and nods.

“I’ll be outside the hall to give you some privacy.” She says softly. She places a hand on your shoulder with a meaningful glance, and leaves. You look back to the cell and walk over there slowly.

Dad is facing the wall, not looking and you, and Jane gives you a pleading look. “Oh John, what have they done to you?” She whispers quietly, reaching her hand out through the bars. You crouch down and she touches your face softly, giving you a loving look. You bite your lip and tear up, this was too much.

“So--so we’re going to leave you guys in here for a time, so that you can prove yourselves that you won’t hurt us an--”

“We’ve already heard the fucking tale, son. You don’t have to repeat what the goddamn bloodsucker said.” Dad interrupts and you flinch.

“Dad--” Jane sounds and he stands up, rushing to the bars. You back away quickly. It’s quiet for a moment.

“I can’t believe they turned my only son into a monster!” He yells through the bars, his eyes hard. You momentarily stopped breathing, a little in shock. “My spineless daughter did nothing to stop the damn demons from taking us, and I can’t believe you’re crazy enough to be with them!”

“They saved my life, Dad!” You suddenly yell back. He only sneers. “They just reanimated you from the dead to do sick things to you, you’ll see Johnny boy. But then again, you’re like the old bitch and her inbred drunk daughter so--”

“ENOUGH!” You yell and quickly you pull out your wand and cast a knock-out spell you had just learned on Dad. Jane inhales sharply as he crumples to the ground.

“What have you done?” She looks as if you’re a monster--The same look Dad gave you. You clench your jaw. “Just a knock-out spell. I couldn’t stand the bullshit he was spewing.”

“I can’t believe you listen to those monsters John! He didn’t have to be so blunt about it, but he’s right! They are going to _kill_ us, John, if we don’t fucking comply with what they want! How can we take this in stride? How John? _HOW?_ ”

You let out a loud yell in frustration. “Just forget it Jane!” And then you do the manly proud thing and run right the hell out of there. Rose doesn’t say anything as you burst out of the dark hallway and into your room. You’re glad she doesn’t.

~

You’re being angsty as you lay on your bed listening to Nickleback music. It was appropriate music for your situation and well--You secretly liked Nickleback. But you were pretty sure Dave would eat your heart again if you actually admitted that.

You hear a couple of knocks on your door and you pause your music, and get up to open it. Dave is standing on the other side, looking a tad awkward and honestly you couldn’t blame him. It’s not like you had kissed him the night before or anything! But you did and, well--It was super awkward.

“Okay, so, like, we’re going to Applebees with the family, and Mom wanted to know if you wanted to come. I heard about the whole family drama thing and it sounded pretty shitty. So if you don’t wanna come, well, your loss. Applebees is fucking delicious.” You raise an eyebrow and sigh.

“Yeah, Applebees sounds cool. I’d really like to get out of the house anyways.” Dave nods and moves out of the way so you can leave your room. You both quietly walk downstairs, and suddenly he reaches out for your hand. You take it, and hand in hand you walk to the living room. Everyone’s talking with each other and they quiet down as they spot you two when you walk in. Dirk rolls his eyes and snorts and Roxy is beaming at you two. You drop Dave’s hand immediately and Mom clears her throat for you all to listen.

“Alright, family trip out to dinner. But since I’m not partial to Applebees and neither Rose or Kanaya are for that matter, we’re going to have a girls night and stay home.” You knew that was code for ‘a nice girls night for us to have fun, paint our nails, and watch the prisoners.’ but you don’t say anything.

“I’m an official boy for tonight!” Roxy says loudly. She grabs on Jake’s hand and pulls him out the door.

“Wait, where’s Jade?” You ask.

“Apparently she has a date with some guy.” Dave says with a grin.

“Really?” You look at Jake, and he only has a scowl on his face. Maybe he wasn’t informed of this either.

“C’mon babe, stop frowning, it’s boys night at Applebees.” And Dirk sweeps in and takes a hold of Jake and pulls him away from Roxy and out the door. She pouts and motions to Bro who sweeps her up and gives her a piggyback, and they leave as well.

“C’mon babe--” Dave tries to put the moves on you as well, but you shove him out of the way and run out the door laughing. Boys night would be so fun!

~

It turns out having an obsessive drinker and a gambler doesn’t make eating at Applebees too much fun. Sure, the night started off alright, but it didn’t help that when Jake and Dirk got up to leave for a “bathroom break” together they got caught. Jake was red in the face and Dirk just looked pissed. Then Bro got into a fight over someone gambling with him at the bar. Apparently his horse didn’t win a race. Matters only got worse when Roxy started to laugh at the fight and fell over to too much booze consumed. She was also supposedly 19 and was ‘underage’. To put it simply, you guys had to book it out of that Applebees quickly and were most likely never allowed to show up in any Applebees ever again. You did have some good ribs though.

The ride home was uncomfortably quiet. You had again chosen to ride with Dave in his rusty old pickup and, well, the tension sucked. He finally manned up and put a hand on your leg and you didn’t move it. The two of you were making out in the car when you reached the driveway.

It had started out innocent enough--You kissed him on the cheek again and he was still for a moment. Then he moved in to kiss you and it was all over. No one was really surprised when you rushed inside with Dave and ran upstairs with him. You got a glimpse of a thumbs-up from Bro and a cheer from Roxy.

About an hour later you’re in bed with Dave and you actually can’t believe what went down. Not that you were a virgin before, but this was kind of crazy. Stereotypically enough, Dave is smoking a cigarette with an arm behind his head and you kinda want to punch him for that. He looks over at you with a smirk and that urge to punch him melts a little.

“You know, you look stupid with that.” You mention and he just shrugs. You look back at the ceiling and sigh. “Tell me about yourself.” You say plainly. He’s quiet for a moment and you continue. “Well, you know about me pretty well, and since we just did the nasty and I’m sure this isn’t a one time thing--Well I think I deserve to know more about you.”

You look over at Dave and his jaw is tight. He sighs a little and rubs out the cig on the back of his hand. You grimace. “So you want to know about me, huh?” He drawls out, and you really hadn’t noticed the whole southern accent thing until he was turned on. It was kinda funny. Scooting and sitting up he looks at you and looks down at the rumpled sheets. “Alright I’ll tell you, but you gotta swear to secrecy and shit. What I’m about to say is pretty damn crucial.” You nod eagerly and he laughs a bit.

“Well what little you know about me is fake. I’m living under a fake identity for my safety and, well, you’ll know why in a bit.” He pauses there and looks at you again, eyes hard. “I’m not just some minority demon, I’m actually one of Dad’s number one guys. Instead of being around a hundred years old, I’m actually around the age 3,000. Though I haven’t been counting birthdays in a while.” You can feel your eyebrows raise pretty high at this news and he snorts. “Don’t have to look so surprised, demons can alter themselves to look a certain way. Not a hundred percent different, but different enough. Now as I was saying, you probably think I’m cuckoo to have lied to everyone and told them I’m someone else. I’m not even going to tell you my actual name since it’s dangerous. Dangerous for me at least.” He stops and your mouth is hanging open. “I’m not done, dammit, leave your ‘oh Dave how could you!’s to yourself for now. Basically when I was around 2,000 and was fed up with the world, I started this revolution. I got a good look at my surroundings and realized that I didn’t want to be the bad guy anymore. Sure sin was cool, I got to eat souls for a living, but what was the point? I--I yearned for a soul of my own--I wanted to be good! I wanted to be human. So, so I started this revolution you see? I started this huge rally for demons who didn’t think Dad was fair and that we could change.” Another pause, a couple of soft breaths before he continued. “It started out great, I had a huge following in a short time. And then it changed. Apparently Dad got tired of humoring the damn thing--And then he put his fist down. A great war started and so many of us died. It was a huge civil war--And I had started it all. So I faked my own death and fled. I changed my appearance for good, and I lived on the down low. I finally found out about the Lalondes and Bro and Dirk and realized they were on the rebellion side. I had always knew that my words were never going to go away, but I didn’t realize that it was still so popular.” He trails off and you’re silent for a bit.

“I promise I won’t tell Dave.” You say quietly. He nods and reaches out for your hand. You squeeze it gently. You stay that way for a while, holding hands. Finally he gets up and dresses and kisses you goodnight. Your heart races, and all you can think of is Dave’s story and the fact that you two had sex. You have a restless night with fitful sleep and disturbing dreams where demons are fighting a brutal battle.

~

You’re now Dave Strider and you just fucked Egbert and spilled your whole story. Great. You quickly got dressed after the sappy hand holding scene and kissed him goodnight. You close his door softly behind you to only see Dirk standing there, eyes wide. You freeze.

“You’re Cor Come--” You hiss and cover his mouth up.

He squirms underneath you and you finally let him go when he licks your hand.

“You heard?” You whisper angrily.

“Everything.” He says, almost breathless. His shades are off and you can see amber eyes wide with happiness. “You can liberate us again.”

You swallow hard; everything you had worked hard to forget was going to come back. You guess it was as good a time as any. “Get Mom, we have some shit to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, we're updating. What?? Ok but in seriousness I've been kind of sick for a while and I really haven't felt like updating. Also school has been crazy hard lately, and finally I'm going to be out for summer, so we're going to definitely update a lot more then! I want to thank the people who have been sticking with this fic and saying so much nice things about it! It really makes us feel happy and appreciated here! I also have to announce that this fic's first birthday was in March! It's been more than a year since we first started it, and gosh, we're really happy with how far it's come! All I can say with what I have in store for you guys is crazy, AND FINALLY we're getting somewhere with a new arc! Happily enough Dave and John are sorta together (for now hahahah) and we have a secretive romance for Jade! I can't wait to continue this fic because it's really going to be an experience! 
> 
> Again, we appreciate all the comments you leave, and don't be a stranger and tell us what you think! We enjoy good critiques of our work and we want to know if you guys enjoy it! Also don't forget to kudos and bookmark it too! Thanks for everything guys!
> 
> ~Jaysnarnia


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